Edited by Odeta Catana, Photo Editor
Could you please tell us a little more about yourself?
I am 35 years old and live in Puglia, in the part best known as Salento, after a lapse of nine years spent in Turin. I have several passions, among them photography, cycling, folk music, tattoos and deeply love the sea. I am a graphic designer.
How did you start taking pictures?
I approached photography alone, without help, buying my first camera in 2003, a 2-megapixel Kodak EasyShare CX6230I was glad as a child. In time I have changed different cameras, until reaching a professional DSLR camera, but I put it aside after just a few months, when I casually discovered a Bencini Koroll II that belonged to my grandfather.
It was love at first sight, was right away so different. I realized I love the analog, that is necessary to think and reason about shooting, that there’s no hurry to see the result, that everything must be experienced with the correct timing.
From then on, many things have changed, I take photos mainly with film but I also do some photos with the iPhone app VSCO CAM. I have a small collection of analogue cameras and this passion took me to come up with a friend and create a blog, devoted exclusively to analog photography.
Where does your inspiration comes from?
The web is a source of inspiration, you can discover many photographers, famous and not famous, with it. But in my opinion, apart from anything, is the instant you live in that suggest and inspire the right way to capture that moment.
Do you have portrait photography as well?
Not really. To be honest, is the one I prefer. I’d love to portray unknown people, maybe stopping them on the street, but unfortunately my shyness wins. However, there are three elements that strike me in a portrait: the light of the eyes, the lived skin and the expression of the lips.
When you did photograph portraits, what kind of relationship do you have with your subject when you shoot?
There are very few people that I photographed or who wanted to be photographed by me, mostly friends and relatives, people that know me. Maybe the biggest challenge here is in convincing them to be natural, because it is naturalness that I would like to photograph.With the places is completely different, new places are a continuous bombing of emotions, thanks to the discovery. So, the conquest of the place is done gently, in silence.
Do you think it’s important to follow a school to learn how to shoot?
I believe that the study is important in all the things that you want to do, but for sure theory is not enough, it takes a lot of practice, hard work and dedication. For myself, I have not studied photography, I have not followed any course, I just like taking pictures to live on memories through them and, when I can, to put them in the frame. I’m an amateur, not a professional photographer.
What’s the photo you want to take and you never did?
As I said before, I would like to start doing portrait photography. When you photograph a person you live a unique moment with him, it is your ability to stop it forever. Instead, a photo that I’d like to take, is the classic family portrait, to be handed down to posterity, not to lose the memory.
What’s your photo-mission?
Tear off an emotion in those who observe.
