Highlights February 2022
This has been an extremely prolific month for me which also resulted in the launch of my new visual blog. I made a lot of photos and many of a good standard. Making a choice was not easy, but in the end I favored those that suggest some notes to share with you readers.
A photograph that exemplifies much of my approach on the street. An instinctive reaction to what I see in front of me, with anti-compositional hazards that are however a way of composing. The snapshot aesthetic is therefore prominently highlighted.
And always on the way of composing the scenes can appear chaotic but there is always a sense. This photograph, for example, condenses a lot of what I love to photograph on the street. We find a frame inside the frame, a visual contact, reflections. I argue that there are no universal rules of composition when it comes to street photography, but rather the composition must work according to the scene in front of us.
There are photographs instead that are supported only thanks to the character being portrayed. In that case they are shots in which all the strength comes from this but in photographing I have to find a way to make it look good. And in this one, in particular, it wroks pretty good. Too bad you can’t appreciate the bigger dimensions because the clown’s eyes are particularly alive, making it appear almost three-dimensional. I think printed this one should be fantastic.
An example of photographs that arise from an intuition. I'm not going to try to explain it, but the writing on the boy's t-shirt should help.
Someone will say that it is always repeating the same photo, but I must say I disagree. I prefer to talk of consistency. And if the photos are of this level then sorry but I will repeat myself until I die.
Here these kinds of moments represent the reason why Iam a photographer. To grasp a human gesture or expression.
A photograph played on the number 2 that is repeated in the various subjects / objects. A lucky shot? Certainly, but for luck you must go to meet it. Like me approaching to them in order to shoot having seen it from afar and praying that the scene would not change much.
In this month I have returned to take back what I was entitled to. I think I have wasted too much time in denying who I am as a street photographer and, perhaps, in recent years, perhaps also due to a process of distancing myself from a movement that has become fashion, I have explored other things. However, I am a photographer who doesn’t hide what he does on the street, who exposes himself, who has an approach that is sometimes in your face, certainly I am not shy in my actions. And this is sometimes highlighted in the photos. In photos like this one.
Here we have an example of that daring photographs that underline an absolutely personal vision. Of those photographs that for me are fragments and portions of reality not anchored to excessively didactic. To bring you inside the image, but doing it my way, which doesn't have to be something that clarifies everything to you as an observer, yet you are there, inside the frame. At that moment I made the photo. A real snapshot.
And in the month of lovers this photo fits. But I also want it to be an anti-war love message.
We are living in a terrible time that has resulted in a conflict in which, at the moment, neither side is seen to withdraw or make an attempt in favor of diplomacy. The dystopia into which they have drawn us continues to cause a descent into the abyss of madness. I try to take refuge in photography, even if it is not easy at all, but I feel that it is one of the few moments in which I can enter a more serene dimension. Never as in this phase of my life do I feel that street photography is therapeutic in order not to go crazy.
