Originality! The question is: how much one is influenced by images one has been exposed to in his life. Humanistic education, years of visiting fine art museums around the world, browsing through the work of the masters of photography… All contribute to making you “click” when you encounter in your crosshair the framing of a possible “hit”.

I’m not sure I know what “original” means in this context. I think one should pursue a sort of balance in terms of framing or color or contrast or… all of the above and, on the other hand, significance, impact, symbolism, storytelling. All this should be tied together by what I call “form“. Given these ingredients, original is the “entrée” that mixes them better, adding maybe a little something else that makes the taste outrageous or, at least, stunning.

The “Street”, which I stretch to include all places marked by a more or less solid presence of strangers. I just go for it, ignoring any etiquette or rule of privacy. I shoot people as they are, mostly unaware of being targetted by my lens, sparing just the subjects in any indecorous position in time and space. There is a great deal of randomness in the way I pursue my targets. It’s often like scattering the crowd without even watching in the viewfinder. On the other hand, there are things that one can’t control, and it’s nice, back to my workstation, to find out how something juicy that I didn’t even suspect to have caught, just jumped into the frame.

On the other hand, what else street photography is other than objectively photographing what happens on the streets?

When you say “reportage” you imagine “crime”, “war”, “catastrophe”. The people have a natural captivation with conflict and intense motility, which easily yields to what I call “the market of horror”. There is a less dramatic, more peaceful way to describe the humanity, and it’s in the course of popular gathering as festivals, carnivals, races, parties or religious celebrations, which are at least chances for anthropological research.

(Right: Mondovì International Balloons Meeting of Epiphany)

Some aspects of what I do can be characterized by groups of photos. One of these is what I call “Magic Realism”, when I try to capture a moment in space-time. In these circumstances, the reality is suspended and produces a dilemma. In those moments, I feel like a fisherman throwing nets with a wider mesh, to capture, not the fish, but the spirit of the fish.

(“ Hide-and-Seek ”. A kid observing a context laking his presence. May 2018. Nikon D810, 120 mm (24-120,0 mm ƒ/4) 1/125″ ƒ/8 ISO 12800).