The raw symptoms of urban life and Street Photography

For too many it has become commonplace to think of street photography only in terms of well-composed and entertaining photographs that must not touch on serious topics and, above all, it is forbidden - for many - to propose poverty and other themes of pain.

My work has been criticized by someone because I show also the dirt and the poor.

I think street photography is not just about nice things and it should show also the bad and the crap. It is a common place to affirm we should not photograph homeless people, the garbage, the drugs. I think this idea needs to be stopped.

If we acceptr the street photography is nowadays the only credible form to make documentary (because journalism is subject to an agenda of big corporations and financial interests) well, our cities are pretty far to be just a funny and absurd place just like the most of street photographers show. For too long the idea has passed that if you do this in street photography you are unethical, as if to imply that street photography should be relegated to a sort of game, as fun as possible and with light themes. And the consequence of this idea is that today many have reduced street photography to a kind of joke.

But I reject the idea.

From the point of view of an openly humanist photography, to which I feel I belong, I am interested in bringing the real world to the eyes of those who observe the images and the real world is far from being just a theater of the absurd and where I have to enjoy everything the time when, in reality, there is little to laugh about.

I am not making poverty spectacular and I am not fomenting sensationalism. There is always our sensitivity and being polite in telling certain stories will make the difference.