Considerations

Since I’ve started the Brooks Institute of photography, in August 2011, I’ve been shooting the most diverse things: landscapes, products, architecture, stock, lifestyle. Even if I don’t like to put myself in a box, and restrict my work on a single category, I have to say that shooting people is one of the things that I like the most. It’s a process that involve all your skills as a photographer, but beyond that, it also show the person you are, more than every other kind of photography. When you shoot a person you have to communicate, give direction to make your vision understandable by the person you are photographing, but at the same time you have to leave the freedom of expression that you want from the person in front of you. It’s an evolving process that is never the same. That’s why I like it.

Daniel Johung, photographer and friend

Here are some photos that I’ve taken lately. They were shot not to far apart from each other. In these different sets of photographs, to my surprise, I see a different me. I can’t say what’s the direction I’m taking, but I’m just enjoying this moment, and the more it takes me off guard, the more I enjoy it. This is because photography doesn’t stop after you’ve pressed the shutter. Photography is going back to yourself to reflect on who you are. That’s why most people stop doing it, because they either don’t like what they see, or they are afraid of it, or they are afraid of what other people might think of their work (and in doing so, they are afraid of what other people think of them). But you have to sit back and relax, and enjoy what you see, because you did it, it’s your work, not everybody else’s.

Ben Flynn, photographer and friend

Daniel Johung, photographer and friend

Jeff Clark

I have the pleasure to work for Jeff Clark part-time (you can check his website here). He’s a great photographer and friend. He has a great project going on: shooting bike racers in a unique way. In fact, he shot them right after they’ve finished the race, tired, sweating and still heavily breathing from the strain. In addition to this he used a white background so that you think they are in a studio. But guess what, you can see where they are from their eyes or from the visor on their helmet. And I love this. Totally unique. By the way, Lance Armstrong is between those racers…

This is an editorial portrait I’ve shot in his old studio. The place was already cool to me but he moved into a new studio which is “so rad”, as he say. And I agree.

P A R A D I G M

Since tomorrow I’ll be in charge of the editorial line of the Paradigm website. My friend Ben Flynn (who’s a great photographer too) gave me the opportunity of run his blog for a week. Paradigm is a great concept: it’s a blog like this, but of a different kind. It’s a place to share pictures that inspire you for their visual style, their content or their beauty. Or it’s simply to share something that you like. It’s more direct, as you display the picture in a grid, and you scroll down and down. It’s great if you are a visual person. First of all, because you can be inspired by watching so many pictures, and second and most important, it’s something that help you build your own style. By saying “I like it”, you become more aware of what you find interesting, of what you want to be. And most important, you get to know yourself even more. 

I’m very excited to do this! I believe that having a place where you can put the images you like, it’s like having a box where you only put the things that have a meaning, that you want to save forever.

And it’s even better to share this with others, so that they may find to have something in common with you, or even find your style boring or ugly. That’s ok, it’s part of the game.

See you on PARADIGM (click on it to check it out!)

Mario Giacomelli, part 1

I’ve decided to talk about the italian photographer Mario Giacomelli two days ago, when I stumbled in a picture that I’ve shot last winter with my iPhone. It was the page of a book and I started to read it again, not remembering at all what book could have been from. When I was done with it, I knew immediately that the book was about Mario Giacomelli because of the simplicity of the words, which also makes the beauty of his person. The book is called “My whole life”, and it’s actually a collection of chat on photography and on its own life.

Mario Giacomelli was a great photographer, one of my favorite, and I believe a unique one in the whole world because the way he did it is so different from everybody else. I’ll talk more about him and his pictures in a future post, right now I want to talk about the page I found, because I really believe the same things about photography (and life too). Here it is:

Yes I know it’s in italian, and yes I know it’s a bad picture! But It was a reminder, and I’ll translate it for you. Here it goes (something like this):

“I’m sure that I will stop (to photograph), I will die, and I won’t have understood anything about photography, because I can’t figure it out. Not in its being an image, I can’t figure it out as a language, because the only thing that matter to me is to have that desire. It happens on sunday, the only day where I shoot: I wake up, I know that I go out to get a cappuccino – I just do it on Sundays -, I wear sunday clothes. I’m like farmers, it’s important to me (to have these rituals). If sunday is a day just on the calendar, It’s not sunday anymore, it’s a day like the others! But if you live it like I do, (as a ritual) – I shave, I always have the same pasta out at the restaurant, the same cappuccino – myself, that always hate repetitions but end up in doing them all – it’s not a repetitions anymore! This is something that goes on and on, there is not repetitions in doing the same things if you make them live.

Then I get on the car, I start the engine and I go wherever the car wants: I feel that it wants to go left, then right… I don’t understand where it wants to go: I don’t know where I’m going because it doesn’t exist a place in the world where you can say: “if you go there you will take pictures”. I am a person that needs to find, and to find you can’t sleep, you have to move! So wherever direction I feel that the car wants to go, I let it go, and I walk with it.”

Right now I just would like to have the book with me because I would like to go on and read to know what he would have said next… But anyway, I just wanted to share this page because I feel I intend photography like him. Something not completing rational, an evolving process. A process that makes you grow, and reflect on the world you see.

That’s it for now. As I said I’ll talk more about his most beautiful pictures in a future post. If you are curious and you can’t wait, goggle him!