I never received any formal photographic training but I loved and practiced photography since my childhood. I started to work in film and television when I was sixteen years old and grew up learning the trade “hands on”, relying on the advice of some of the best photographers and producers in the annals of TV broadcasting, while working on the side of important figures in modern journalism such as Dan Rather, Morley Safer, Ed Bradley and many others.
My long professional career in television led me to witness and record many unique historical events such as the fall of the Berlin wall, the conflict in the Balkans, the war in the Persian Gulf, to mention just a few.
In 1982, while I was living in London, working for CBS and many other clients there, I started a production company “Magnetic Art” to devote part of my time and resources to document oral tradition and disappearing cultural history around the world, a topic that fascinated me since childhood.
Some documentary films and live recordings I produced became part of important international academic collections and to this day they are used as reference and teaching tools.
Although I mainly shot moving pictures for most of my life, I have always strived for conciseness in my visual creations and often had the feeling I could tell a story of equal impact through a single frame instead of an hour long documentary.
I love the idea to concentrate all the conceptual content and visual power “diluted” over the filmic grammar of a documentary, in just one frame.
At the end of 2008, as the industry entered a rather bitter recession, my most dependable employer for over twenty years, CBS News, considerably “downsized” its staff and operations.
This was a blessing in disguise as it enabled me to concentrate more on my still photography and finalize several portraiture and editorial projects I had kept on my backburner for quite a while, such as publishing the photo reportage about the last Dominican rural brothels, “FUTUTINA-The Freedom of Slavery”.
Coincidently, fate, word of mouth, and my love for fine cigars were instrumental in engaging me in an interesting photography challenge: I became the first photographer ever allowed to gain “access all areas” and document the world famous Tabacalera Arturo Fuente, from their tobacco fields to every stages of cigar production and distribution.
By now, more than fifty percent of my work has shifted from film-making to the incisive brevity of still photography but, as always in my career, I remain committed to give all my clients and assignments, whether event, editorial or commercial, a content-rich, creative and very professional result, relaying on my over two decades of experience in image-making and my very personal, sometimes even unorthodox, use of old and new image technology.
Links:
http://www.magneticpic.com/
http://magneticpic.posterous.com/
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