On being honest

This short piece is not about the easy fashion of showing yourself for the sake of showing, a practice I have nothing against but tend to thoroughly ignore.
Rather, I’m talking about infusing something of your own self in what you do; about being sincere, believing it, having the guts of facing yourself.
And then not being afraid of coming out publicly, too.

To be honest, and that’s exactely the point here, this is also about finding out what others see when they are looking at you - yes, you who are looking at one of my photographs: it’s me you are looking at, just so now you know - and check if my observations will surface, if the revelations I have found working on/at my painterly photographs have ultimately become discernible at all.

Please note that I am not in the least looking for a matching of visions.
I am not expecting that your interpretation is the same than my own.
On the contrary, the real value is when any interpretations added by others bring in more questions and even more revelations.

Taking photographs is a therapy

When I work on these premises, taking photographs is a therapy.
A therapy that enables me to ponder and consequently unveil and focus things of my life I hadn’t noticed or considered before.
One of these things that occurred to me while shooting and editing images - maybe even the main spark behind the Verosimile painterly series and exhibition - is how very impressionist I am. How first and foremost the whole occurs to me and then, only afterwards, the details become clear and discernible. Lots of details.

The self portrait above, titled Games the shadows play is a metaphor for the structures that are the foundations of my being a photographer.
In this photograph you can find me, in a corner; then the white walls, luminous and almost blinding yet not empty but full of the tiniest details — discernible only from a near observation; but most of all, supporting the whole image, there are the structures and the corners and the shadows.
This photograph is a shot taken in the absence of the backcloth, the bare stage stripped to the scenes, evoking the presence of the author between the plays.

For a better look at the painterly portrait subject of this article, please see it on its Flickr page.

This is an English adaptation of the original Italian post Giochi d’ombra, part of my contributions on painterly iphoneography for Metabox, where it appeared on May 28th 2014.

Read my posts (in Italian) on Metabox then find them adapted to English on aledigangi.com