Around town

What do I say when someone asks me what prompted me a long time ago, and what still prompts me, to take an interest in photography in general and what kind of photography in particular? My shots are certainly not of documentation or anthropological research, much less of social interest or denunciation; I would say that for me photography is a strictly personal activity, a sort of game where, fixing my emotions and wonders on the photographic support, I seek intellectual satisfaction and serenity of spirit. Ultimately, by photographing, I propose to fix the emotion felt through a subjective interpretation of reality and to activate a sort of short circuit between the photographer, the photographed subject and the observer. My photographs arise spontaneously, during my wanderings in urban centers, from a sort of personal fascination induced by artistic forms, architectural expressions and contemporary installations, truly capable of surprising me. So what piques my interest? I am certainly fascinated by the aesthetic value achieved by the extreme formal simplicity of linear elements used as a decorative motif of minimalist facades, or as load-bearing elements (cables and rods) of bridges and overpasses in an urban context. Similarly, I am amazed to observe the way in which the curved surfaces of modern buildings are made, where the set of complicated steel lattices and glass panels try to emulate the voluptuous sinuosities of past architectures. In contrast with these roundness, but attractive for the immediacy of the visual message, is the irrepressible presence of angular surfaces which, in some cases, also highlight very narrow acute angles. Again, I am amazed by the repetitive use of the same formal element which, although extremely simple and often also used for structural purposes, acquires a significant aesthetic value through its positioning through appropriate symmetries and patterns. Sometimes, then, my imagination is struck by the use of color so that the facades of the buildings I photograph become giant palettes where the colors chase and blend to give joy and cheerfulness and, sometimes, even to eliminate a structural monotony.