The Street Photographer Agenda Episode 36

Last day in Downtown, few photos

Notes

Why you do Street Photography? This question often resonates in interviews and also in my analytical mind. The answer is simple: I do Street Photography because I exist. Attention I don't say that I exist because I am a photographer, but since I exist I am a photographer. And my existence has always been linked to observing people even when I was without a camera. And it is therefore natural for me to think of photography as something to be done on the street, where the maximum object of study is represented by the human condition on the largest stage that exists: public space.

Because even if it is true that, especially in public places, the individual uses masks ranging from outfits to attitudes, at the same time an observer is able to filter all this and get to catch a gesture, an expression, a way of doing and acting that reveal something more intimate and profound, something that puts you in a position to understand, sometimes, more about people than what they themselves are willing to show.

And it is then that we understand how important it is to do street photography more for ourselves than for any other artistic, semi-artistic or ambitious desire to aim for fame or money. Taking pictures for myself, to enjoy an activity that keeps me happy in life, to try to understand, perhaps, a little more about the world and about myself. Which then also becomes a metaphysical process, a philosophical reflection, of that junction between moment and lost moment, of that continuous research that includes frustration and exaltation. Of being a photographer even when you don't take pictures. Knowing how to wait, to stop to meditate and observe rather than always clicking. To wear out the soles and get tired. Everything becomes an all-encompassing experience, in making life itself art I find myself every time and then I am reborn.

I do this because I exist.