About
About photography,
Despite being consciously aware of my "gifted eye" since childhood, I never considered making a living through photography. For many years, it was simply a hobby and a passion. In 1991, I won a photo contest about beauty with a photograph of an elderly woman setting her hair while looking into a broken mirror. The style of the photograph was compared to that of the famous French photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson. Before the contest, I had never heard of him, but soon after, I went to a library and discovered his amazing talent in his books. I was so impressed that I decided to quit my job as an Italian language teacher and became a photographer. It was the best decision of my life. Very soon after that, I was travelling around the world for many international magazines, discovering beautiful places and different cultures. However, the selection you see in this exhibition is dedicated to my country and my people; the Italians. Most of the pictures are snapshots of people I do not know, stolen moments, but a little part of them shows moments of my life, my family, friends, or even people who briefly crossed paths in my life. Photography has the power to make those encounters last forever.
Photography is an analytical discipline, unlike painting, which is synthetic. Some people naturally have an analytical imagination, others a synthetic, and some not at all. I am analytical. If someone gives me a blank piece of paper and asks me to draw something, I panic. I have no idea where to start. However, if they place me anywhere in the world and ask me to explain what I see visually and to freeze it in a photo, I can do this very easily. I would even say instinctively.
Photography is a creative process that can encompass everything and all the world. I like to work without a time limit, unobserved and undisturbed, without phone calls or other interruptions. When I go somewhere to photograph, I never know whether I will be there five minutes or five days. My inspiration comes from the atmosphere, the light, the people and my reaction to that moment.
To be creative often means following a path with very limited chances and only partial ideas, often ending in a dead end, but ready to follow a new path. For me, the entire process in the creation of a photo is a source of joy. I enjoy being out at odd times of the day or night, experiencing fascinating places where I would love to be even if I was not a photographer. I love to photograph when I travel and everything that goes with it. Developing the film and seeing the first contact sheets is always so exciting. Editing my images, making the first test prints and achieving the challenge of the final print is crucial to me. It is also important that I make the prints of my images myself. The darkroom brings immeasurable creative potential. Someone else may have a better technique than mine in printing, but it would not be my interpretation. I find the work in the darkroom, and in general, the printing work fascinating and inspiring. It influences and enriches the way I see and photograph.
Later, after having published the work, one experiences the reactions of other people. Photography is a great challenge that requires a lot of work, but it is something that makes me belong to this world. It pleases me to be able to capture a moment of reality.
Since the digital era, images are sometimes altered with the use of editing programs such as Photoshop for example, you can use Photoshop tools to simulate the exact actions and processes used during the darkroom process. The use of Photoshop to manipulate the reality of an image is a lethal damage to the fundament of photography.
I could say that one of the reasons why I became a photographer was to produce documents of my lifetime. The word "reportage" perfectly explains this; a report of an age. This is why I attempt to photograph with analogue film as often as I can. If I have a negative film, then I can still prove that the captured moment was indeed a true one.
Besides documentary photography and all the other works which I have done, I love to use my camera as a diary of my life, especially when I am in Italy with my friends, family, or even people that I have just met. These private moments are an important part of my life as a photographer and an important part of this exhibition.
I am very lucky to have worked for magazines, companies acting almost like scholarships for my work. Today this is more and more difficult. While the interest lies not in the quality and creativity of the work but in the profit made. The control of advertising in magazines is increasing steadily. Editors no longer assign the same orders as before and if they do, for cost reasons, they ask for digital work. The market for professional photography has therefore become worse. Today, photography used in magazines very rarely depicts the truth. Somewhat like decoration. The future of documentary photography does not look good. I guess that I am lucky to have been able to have some of my work published before photography goes downhill.
For me, everything revolves around the individual picture. I choose subjects that move me visually and emotionally. A picture must speak for itself. When it requires an explanation, it is not a strong enough image.
When someone makes great pictures, it is labeled as art, because there is nothing to debate. However, galleries are manipulative as they influence the market. If you are working specifically as an artist, then you cannot think like a photographer. The photographic work should be outstanding. When someone wants to have a photo of mine to hang in their home, I am thrilled. In the end, the customers that purchase my photographs are those that allow me to create more personal work.
I grew up in Southern Italy in a Catholic working-class family. In my family, there were no artistic traditions, I noticed this from a young age and found that I was able to see things differently from most. What I saw then in images, I was only able to find in photography much later in life. With photography, I was able to express myself artistically and at the same time challenge my livelihood. I have never regretted choosing this profession, since then I have been doing something that I love.
My work is mainly inspired by film, the beauty of my birth country, as well as my mother's unconditional love. I grew up watching black and white films from Fellini, Antonioni, Pasolini, etc. I realized that images can convey strong emotion and display a fantastic world. Not any less fantastic was the world around me. I have the beautiful coast of Sorrento and Amalfi to thank for my sense of beauty and light. From my mother, I learned the willingness to fight for what I love and the love and respect for the people I meet.
The Italian collection is created primarily by the fact that I watch the world with attention and so this occurs mostly in the same place where I was created. My works are characterized by the same thing that I am. You must stay true to yourself. Your work must reflect yourself somehow and it must come from the heart.
Initially, I was interested in all directions of photography, and today I do not like to limit myself to a single area. However, what truly fascinates me are people. I love to interact with people, to see what drives them and to observe their psyche. Photography is an excellent way to explore people, and the best place to do this is on the street. When I am on the street, I follow my instincts and listen to my feelings. If my instinct says left, then I go left. Often after capturing a great moment, I feel like I have had a kind of vision. Maybe this is just experience. The street is like a text. I can read it in my own imperfect way.
I love to be on the street and watch others. It is such a joy to be alive and decipher what is happening around us. I watch all who come down the street, try to read possible connections between individuals, and try to understand what would happen if they came together or parted. When it comes to image content, the street offers incredible vivid potential. I am looking for nothing specific, I just watch. Just as waves that constantly wash ashore, the street always brings something new. It enriches my life. I always try to have a camera with me, and I am very open to the generosity of street life. When I look back at my pictures, I still remember everything that happened on that specific day. For example, the day I took the photo "The Flying Photographer" of an unknown tourist in Venice. First, she turned her back to me to take a picture herself. Suddenly she moved from one foot to the other, and her feet took the same position as the winged lion of San Marco in the distant background. At the same time, a gust of wind lifted her jacket, which produced an unexpected harmony with the wings of the lion. These are magic moments that we do not see every day. Nonetheless, it is these moments that make life worth living as a photographer.
Beginning in the early nineties, for a period of about fifteen years, I was, more than ever before, extremely sensitive, open, and very close to my subconscious. I think that this was also the time in which I did my best work. Later in life, but during the time when my mother was ill and then sometime after her death, I was extremely vulnerable and suddenly had difficulty approaching people. I discovered how healing landscape photography can be. After some time, this helped me back into my life and closer again to people. I plunged for a time in portrait photography. Portraits create unity. They show the view of the photographer as well as that of the people being photographed. When the photographer decides to go to a certain setting, they already have half the portrait in mind. Each photographer has their point of view. My interest is in the inner life of a person, their psyche, their spirituality, and individuality. I hope that my portraits reflect that.
It is not much different when I photograph women. There are two types of women in my photographs: models and girlfriends. I love to take pictures of my girlfriends, lovers, and muses. The intimacy that I have with them is completely different than that of models. Nevertheless, it is important to create an atmosphere when working with models, to find a kind of intimacy and a game of complicity. Only then is it possible to create the perfection of female grace and delicacy. Only the technical side can really be planned. One can hope that the chemistry is right between the photographer and the model so that something new is created.
Creating the right atmosphere when working with models is essential. A sense of intimacy and complicity is necessary to capture the perfection of female grace and delicacy. However, only the technical aspects can be planned. It is hoped that the chemistry between the photographer and the model is right so that something new can be created. When I photographed women I loved, it was often a way to capture moments and preserve memories of them. This was not driven by a desire to prolong the moment or document what was happening, but to materialize certain emotions at certain times.
With models, there are erotic moments that are created by lighting and atmospheric conditions, and they evoke purely intellectual emotions. Photography allows one to capture these emotions and create something new. Eroticism is a key element in my photography, even when I'm not photographing women. Voyeurism is also evident in many of my images, although they may not necessarily be erotic.
There are people who only look towards the future, while others live in the past. I am someone who enjoys reminiscing about the past. However, my desire to make erotic pictures is not just about preserving memories. A landscape photo cannot capture the scents of the wind or the joy of being in that place, just as an erotic photo cannot replace the scent of a person's body or the physical pleasure between photographer and muse. For me, it's about emotional satisfaction from a place and a body, and reconstructing the way I felt at that moment in time.
A successful female portrait should not only capture the individual woman, but be representative of all women. A serene expression, a naked body, or an intimate gaze can inspire the desire to hold onto that woman just as she was at that moment, but in a different time.
Photography is an essential means of preserving certain moments. Every photo reminds us that "it will never be like that again," but also that "it was" at one point in time.
Despite being consciously aware of my "gifted eye" since childhood, I never considered making a living through photography. For many years, it was simply a hobby and a passion. In 1991, I won a photo contest about beauty with a photograph of an elderly woman setting her hair while looking into a broken mirror. The style of the photograph was compared to that of the famous French photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson. Before the contest, I had never heard of him, but soon after, I went to a library and discovered his amazing talent in his books. I was so impressed that I decided to quit my job as an Italian language teacher and became a photographer. It was the best decision of my life. Very soon after that, I was travelling around the world for many international magazines, discovering beautiful places and different cultures. However, the selection you see in this exhibition is dedicated to my country and my people; the Italians. Most of the pictures are snapshots of people I do not know, stolen moments, but a little part of them shows moments of my life, my family, friends, or even people who briefly crossed paths in my life. Photography has the power to make those encounters last forever.
Photography is an analytical discipline, unlike painting, which is synthetic. Some people naturally have an analytical imagination, others a synthetic, and some not at all. I am analytical. If someone gives me a blank piece of paper and asks me to draw something, I panic. I have no idea where to start. However, if they place me anywhere in the world and ask me to explain what I see visually and to freeze it in a photo, I can do this very easily. I would even say instinctively.
Photography is a creative process that can encompass everything and all the world. I like to work without a time limit, unobserved and undisturbed, without phone calls or other interruptions. When I go somewhere to photograph, I never know whether I will be there five minutes or five days. My inspiration comes from the atmosphere, the light, the people and my reaction to that moment.
To be creative often means following a path with very limited chances and only partial ideas, often ending in a dead end, but ready to follow a new path. For me, the entire process in the creation of a photo is a source of joy. I enjoy being out at odd times of the day or night, experiencing fascinating places where I would love to be even if I was not a photographer. I love to photograph when I travel and everything that goes with it. Developing the film and seeing the first contact sheets is always so exciting. Editing my images, making the first test prints and achieving the challenge of the final print is crucial to me. It is also important that I make the prints of my images myself. The darkroom brings immeasurable creative potential. Someone else may have a better technique than mine in printing, but it would not be my interpretation. I find the work in the darkroom, and in general, the printing work fascinating and inspiring. It influences and enriches the way I see and photograph.
Later, after having published the work, one experiences the reactions of other people. Photography is a great challenge that requires a lot of work, but it is something that makes me belong to this world. It pleases me to be able to capture a moment of reality.
Since the digital era, images are sometimes altered with the use of editing programs such as Photoshop for example, you can use Photoshop tools to simulate the exact actions and processes used during the darkroom process. The use of Photoshop to manipulate the reality of an image is a lethal damage to the fundament of photography.
I could say that one of the reasons why I became a photographer was to produce documents of my lifetime. The word "reportage" perfectly explains this; a report of an age. This is why I attempt to photograph with analogue film as often as I can. If I have a negative film, then I can still prove that the captured moment was indeed a true one.
Besides documentary photography and all the other works which I have done, I love to use my camera as a diary of my life, especially when I am in Italy with my friends, family, or even people that I have just met. These private moments are an important part of my life as a photographer and an important part of this exhibition.
I am very lucky to have worked for magazines, companies acting almost like scholarships for my work. Today this is more and more difficult. While the interest lies not in the quality and creativity of the work but in the profit made. The control of advertising in magazines is increasing steadily. Editors no longer assign the same orders as before and if they do, for cost reasons, they ask for digital work. The market for professional photography has therefore become worse. Today, photography used in magazines very rarely depicts the truth. Somewhat like decoration. The future of documentary photography does not look good. I guess that I am lucky to have been able to have some of my work published before photography goes downhill.
For me, everything revolves around the individual picture. I choose subjects that move me visually and emotionally. A picture must speak for itself. When it requires an explanation, it is not a strong enough image.
When someone makes great pictures, it is labeled as art, because there is nothing to debate. However, galleries are manipulative as they influence the market. If you are working specifically as an artist, then you cannot think like a photographer. The photographic work should be outstanding. When someone wants to have a photo of mine to hang in their home, I am thrilled. In the end, the customers that purchase my photographs are those that allow me to create more personal work.
I grew up in Southern Italy in a Catholic working-class family. In my family, there were no artistic traditions, I noticed this from a young age and found that I was able to see things differently from most. What I saw then in images, I was only able to find in photography much later in life. With photography, I was able to express myself artistically and at the same time challenge my livelihood. I have never regretted choosing this profession, since then I have been doing something that I love.
My work is mainly inspired by film, the beauty of my birth country, as well as my mother's unconditional love. I grew up watching black and white films from Fellini, Antonioni, Pasolini, etc. I realized that images can convey strong emotion and display a fantastic world. Not any less fantastic was the world around me. I have the beautiful coast of Sorrento and Amalfi to thank for my sense of beauty and light. From my mother, I learned the willingness to fight for what I love and the love and respect for the people I meet.
The Italian collection is created primarily by the fact that I watch the world with attention and so this occurs mostly in the same place where I was created. My works are characterized by the same thing that I am. You must stay true to yourself. Your work must reflect yourself somehow and it must come from the heart.
Initially, I was interested in all directions of photography, and today I do not like to limit myself to a single area. However, what truly fascinates me are people. I love to interact with people, to see what drives them and to observe their psyche. Photography is an excellent way to explore people, and the best place to do this is on the street. When I am on the street, I follow my instincts and listen to my feelings. If my instinct says left, then I go left. Often after capturing a great moment, I feel like I have had a kind of vision. Maybe this is just experience. The street is like a text. I can read it in my own imperfect way.
I love to be on the street and watch others. It is such a joy to be alive and decipher what is happening around us. I watch all who come down the street, try to read possible connections between individuals, and try to understand what would happen if they came together or parted. When it comes to image content, the street offers incredible vivid potential. I am looking for nothing specific, I just watch. Just as waves that constantly wash ashore, the street always brings something new. It enriches my life. I always try to have a camera with me, and I am very open to the generosity of street life. When I look back at my pictures, I still remember everything that happened on that specific day. For example, the day I took the photo "The Flying Photographer" of an unknown tourist in Venice. First, she turned her back to me to take a picture herself. Suddenly she moved from one foot to the other, and her feet took the same position as the winged lion of San Marco in the distant background. At the same time, a gust of wind lifted her jacket, which produced an unexpected harmony with the wings of the lion. These are magic moments that we do not see every day. Nonetheless, it is these moments that make life worth living as a photographer.
Beginning in the early nineties, for a period of about fifteen years, I was, more than ever before, extremely sensitive, open, and very close to my subconscious. I think that this was also the time in which I did my best work. Later in life, but during the time when my mother was ill and then sometime after her death, I was extremely vulnerable and suddenly had difficulty approaching people. I discovered how healing landscape photography can be. After some time, this helped me back into my life and closer again to people. I plunged for a time in portrait photography. Portraits create unity. They show the view of the photographer as well as that of the people being photographed. When the photographer decides to go to a certain setting, they already have half the portrait in mind. Each photographer has their point of view. My interest is in the inner life of a person, their psyche, their spirituality, and individuality. I hope that my portraits reflect that.
It is not much different when I photograph women. There are two types of women in my photographs: models and girlfriends. I love to take pictures of my girlfriends, lovers, and muses. The intimacy that I have with them is completely different than that of models. Nevertheless, it is important to create an atmosphere when working with models, to find a kind of intimacy and a game of complicity. Only then is it possible to create the perfection of female grace and delicacy. Only the technical side can really be planned. One can hope that the chemistry is right between the photographer and the model so that something new is created.
Creating the right atmosphere when working with models is essential. A sense of intimacy and complicity is necessary to capture the perfection of female grace and delicacy. However, only the technical aspects can be planned. It is hoped that the chemistry between the photographer and the model is right so that something new can be created. When I photographed women I loved, it was often a way to capture moments and preserve memories of them. This was not driven by a desire to prolong the moment or document what was happening, but to materialize certain emotions at certain times.
With models, there are erotic moments that are created by lighting and atmospheric conditions, and they evoke purely intellectual emotions. Photography allows one to capture these emotions and create something new. Eroticism is a key element in my photography, even when I'm not photographing women. Voyeurism is also evident in many of my images, although they may not necessarily be erotic.
There are people who only look towards the future, while others live in the past. I am someone who enjoys reminiscing about the past. However, my desire to make erotic pictures is not just about preserving memories. A landscape photo cannot capture the scents of the wind or the joy of being in that place, just as an erotic photo cannot replace the scent of a person's body or the physical pleasure between photographer and muse. For me, it's about emotional satisfaction from a place and a body, and reconstructing the way I felt at that moment in time.
A successful female portrait should not only capture the individual woman, but be representative of all women. A serene expression, a naked body, or an intimate gaze can inspire the desire to hold onto that woman just as she was at that moment, but in a different time.
Photography is an essential means of preserving certain moments. Every photo reminds us that "it will never be like that again," but also that "it was" at one point in time.
