I live in the South of Italy and I think this deeply influences my photographic vision and style.
I love to photograph and tell my land, where the more dazzling is the sunlight, the darker are the shadows, which is not simply an aesthetic question. Ferdinando Scianna said that “the South’s pictures, took by the southern photographers, are black”: I think it’s a more existential and psychological question than stylistic. The elements of my shots are mostly the same elements of my land, of my sky, of my streets: the dazzling light, the deep dark shadows, white sun-drenched walls and black silent shapes, because “shadow isn’t just the dialectical moment as opposed to the light, it’s also a psychological moment as opposed to the brightness; there is brightness and there is sorrow too” (F.Scianna).
My black and white photos tell about everyday life among my land’s streets, about people, the rhythms of life, the ways of living, the visions and impressions of a reality made of strong contrasts, just like my images. I think there is always a dramatic tension, a sad mood, a constant sense of sorrow in my photography, a sort of blues feeling. And I love taking photos to old people, I love old people, I think they are poetic and beautiful, one of my photos is titled “let thing age”, form an interview to Cartier-Bresson, my constant inspiration, who says: “Let things age. It’s an American idea to have to be young, dynamic. Damn it! Let things age. Hurray for idleness and old age! We’re supposed to be young, dynamic, aggressive… It’s all modern-world crap.” Well, I agree. In my “Reportage in Lucania” I wanted to show the past that still lives while time flows and inevitably makes it fade away, deleting memories, blinded by the new, forgetting the beauty of old and past things.
I consider myself a street photographer, and a documentary, reportage photographer: I think that my kind of street photography is not so much practiced because it’s probably quite underestimated, since street photography is commonly related to the big cities and the metropolitan life, rather than to the little villages, but you can take a look, for example, to the amazing italian shots of Cartier-Bresson, the kind of street photography I love above all, to understand that street photography documents the everyday life and human condition everywhere, from the metropolis to the smallest places in the world.
I made a little photographic book “Reportage in Lucania & altri scatti” that you can find on Blurb and actually I’m working on a Reportage in Puglia.
Website: http://flavors.me/10dicembre
Twitter: http://twitter.com/10dicembre
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/10dicembre/
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