Highlights August 2023

A difficult period where I was able to photograph only from the second part of the month

Photographing the photographer and all the ontological reflections that can derive from it.

There is a lot of talk about snapshot aesthetics, but how many really cultivate it? It really risks being a definition that has no relevance to reality, such as less is more and then you go around with half a set of lenses…

I insert this shot as a declaration of intent, my authorial idea that pushes and comes out, where imperfect photography is constantly sought after and forged by shots like this. It's me. With all my urgency and my way of seeing things you don't expect, where the shot gushes from the stomach, in an obsessive and maniacal drive, where I take pictures with my whole body.

Photography is also learning to see forms, in a sort of metaphysical reflection and perhaps drugged by the mental and physical state.

The gaze in the camera has long been opposed when referring to candid photography.

But in my daily reflection, experience and personal experience always prevail. Making my presence felt becomes inevitable. It is my gonzography.

I take portraits carried by the wind

I'm an elusive time thief

Your gaze welcomed by mine

A suggestion

of real existence

Encounter Street Photography. Accepting what comes and know how to shoot at the last useful moment.

Photograph by instinct rather than overworking a scene.

I see two opposing schools of thought in this regard, but I maintain that we must not set limits and rather it is a question of knowing how to do everything, always at the service of the result. This is where teaching this becomes very complicated and avoided by most of those who dedicate themselves to offering street photography workshops. Easier, much easier to make lists, decalogues with the whole set of rules to observe. To get to what? An imitation of an imitation, perhaps?

Teaching is not something to do without something better. Teaching is a vocation. It implies willingness to share one's own experience. And really share it, and therefore with no jealousy of one's work.

It's not for everyone. It's not for everyone. Just like this shot.

Allow me a digression fueled by these considerations: in the past someone wrote a comment as if to suggest that I take pictures at random, compared to someone who wanted to kiss the ass. And that photographer has admirers who don't understand shit about photography by declaring how closely you photograph in an image in which he clearly photographed at a distance of at least 15 meters. Now that is not a race, but… the photo above is a proof of photographing very close, clearly not at random, with the aim of capturing an interesting expression of the subject. I pointed the camera at her face, the way Fujifilm kicks out photographers to make that. Even knowing how to recognize real photographers from shitty ones isn't for everyone. Nor for those who were soda reps before being taken on by a photographic brand, with no real knowledge of photography.

Pebble from shoe removed. We can continue this post.

My photography acts a lot on the reaction. You don't find an excessively dilated construction in time, but rather I react to an immediate stimulus. For me this is my favorite way to do street photography.

Characters research for me is an inevitable practice if you live in cities like New York and Mexico City. It's also one of the main reasons I started making street photography. In the end, people are the main motivation and my curiosity towards them.

Of the many vertical shots taken this month, I finally choose this one without humans, but in which the human presence is felt.

I'm attached to vertical shooting because I learned to love photography with so many photos taken with this cut.

Can only colors call a photograph? Yes they can.

The return to reflex after so much mirrorless is a breath of fresh air for my inspiration.

By now there are fewer and fewer people who use a reflex for street photography. Yet I love to photograph with my Rebel. I also feel that I may be able to better capture a certain imperfect and organic aesthetic that I have been metabolizing and pursuing for years. I leave you your film simulations, guys...

As the last photograph selected this month, I insert this.

Perfect imperfection and revelation of the mood of my street wandering. To always and only pursue my way of seeing the world which is not and cannot be incorporated into rigid rules decided by someone. Of my individualism and anarchism that also flow into photography. It's not film, even if it looks like it.

All unbalanced, blurry and out of focus. It is the street dance to which I indulge. My photography really smells like the street and not good living rooms.

Notes

Of my observation and my presentation of myself. To spit in the eyes of the photographic law. Not to accept all the bullshit that comes from those who are in the world of photography without taking off the attitude of hired (prezzolati in Italian is the right term) and belonging to the system, like gears. My photography dissents at least as much as I do in life.

My digital photography often appears more filmic than a lot of film photography that we see around because film is above all a state of mind. which then flows into the approach. With my cheap cameras I do my own thing.

And I leave them to you, my beloved readers and followers.