These are a few images from my people portfolio: some of them are brand new, and some less, but they all have been shot in the last year. I used a simple, clean-looking portfolio case and layout, which I feel reflects my work. I encourage every photographer or any aspiring one to print their work and lay it out in a book, or in any way you want it to be, because it’s a great way to think about your work, and mostly, to see it done, finished. There’s no right or wrong, we are in the land of personal taste: that’s the beauty of it.

Tom, Hawaiian surfer

I wanted to talk more about my new project: Surfers. As I said in my previous post I’m working on a series of portraits of surfers, mostly in California. This is not the usual tribute to pro surfers, or to the cool surfing spots in the world, or to the surf lifestyle, which is beautiful, of course, but not always true.

Surf is a lot more. And this project is my tribute to this MORE. Surf is made of real people, like you and me, who share the same passion. This passion makes them wake up in the early morning, maybe on a cloudy day, in winter, and drive two hours to get to the right spot. It’s very different from the idealized sunny day, where the water is warm and the girls are pretty. Most waters in California are cold, especially considering that winter is the best season for surf. So you have to wear your wetsuit, and maybe you can consider the water to not be “that cold” (I still can’t). Anyway, these people make a lot of sacrifices to fulfill their passion. For these reasons I’ve decided to do these series of portraits with a different style from my own, which is usually clean and polished. I wanted to be able to show the realness of these people. So, to capture it, I had to shoot them when they just came out of the water. I wanted to get the EXPERIENCE they had that day, surfing. If anybody of you have ever surfed, then you must know that the experience stays alive for a couple of hours after it: it’s a feeling of peace and accomplishment, that I’ve only experienced when surfing or swimming. There something magical in being in the water for long, the mind gets clear, and everything vanishes.

This is what I wanted to capture.

So, this is how I met Tom, from Hawaii, where the water is really warm compared to here. I’ve seen him coming out of the water, and I rushed to stop him. We started chatting. He was visiting a friend, and on this cloudy morning, he decided to grab a wetsuit and a surfboard, and went to Emma Wood beach, close to Ventura. There’s something really cool in his story, in the fact that even if he was travelling outside of his country, he decided to go surfing, alone. 

That was the moment. Can I take a few portraits of you, Tom?

Sure.

Tom, Hawaiian surfer

P:S. In the next weeks I’m going to post more photos from this project, and I’ll also go out shooting again, stay tuned.

This is one of the people I’ve been photographing today in Pitas Point, close to Ventura.

His name is Steven.

I’ve talked to Steven for a little while, right after he came out of the water, his family waiting for him.

“How long have you been surfing?”

“For all my life.”

Without talking about the light and the impact it has on the mood of the photograph and on the facial features of a person, there are many other factors that change one photo to the next, like the direction of the gaze, a subtle tilt of the head to the back shoulder or to the front, the chin up or down, framing in the perfect center or close to one border, get close by some inches, tilt the camera just a bit to the left… These are all small adjustments that change completely the photograph.

Here’s a portrait session I had with my friend and photographer Lucas Aznar, and as you can see each of these photos tells a completely different story.

Which one is your favorite, and why?

Portrait of Lucas

Wherever you are, I just wanted you to know that I miss you.

Happy Valentine’s day amore mio

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

From the exhibition manifesto:

“There are people who are satisfied with what they have. Some other can appreciate what they have only when this is lost. Like me. For this reason traveling is something that I need, beyond being a pleasure. It’s the need of let everything go, to take a break from everyday’s life to really understand its value. But travelling is also memory, and photography is what makes it still alive and present. It let us go back to moments that would be lost otherwise. And it lets us relive them, and mostly, it let us understand what they meant to us.

This photographs are exactly the attempt to go back to places and emotions that are far away, to better understand them. Through this photographs of places, people or animals, it relives my memory and my unconscious gaze on it. The famous photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson used to say that to photograph means putting one’s head, one’s eye and one’s heart on the same axis. If photographing is really this act, then a photograph is the tangible result of it to which another ingredient is added: memory.

It is only thanks to memory that we can say who we are. It is only our story that defines us as unique and diverse from each other.

“It’s not were you are at, It’s the journey you’ve taken.”

The exhibition is going to be at the Queriniana Library of Brescia (photos below). It’s a great location with beautiful paintings and old books: it feels great to have my work displayed in such a cool place.

I would like to thank all the people who helped me in doing this. A special thank to Mario Baldoli, Andrea Zucchini and Piera Maculotti for the precious help.

Sono molto felice di avere la mia prima mostra personale domani, venerdì 16 Dicembre, alla biblioteca Queriniana della mia città, Brescia. Vivendo a Santa Barbara, per me è un grande onore e un grande piacere condividere con le persone della mia città il mio lavoro. La mostra durerà fino al 31 Dicembre, se siete da queste parti, fateci un salto!

La mostra sarà in una biblioteca con affreschi stupendi e antichi libri: è bello poter esporre i miei lavori in un ambiente del genere.

Vorrei ringraziare tutti quelli che mi hanno aiutato a rendere questo possibile. Un ringraziamento speciale a Mario Baldoli, Andrea Zucchini, e Piera Maculotti.