i think u try to compose a “story” from flashing fragments of photography… i do like it, and the aesthetics is good generally, but something is not coherent, there is no point where i feel that the “story” goes beyond collection images (and i dont necessarily expect something like a typical peak to the plot etc)… also, i feel a very big gap between some images in terms of quality/impact… it is your story of course, so i can only suggest u to play with the edit, or with some guide-line to your story, especially knowing that u have really good photographs in your arsenal that are not included here, at least some of them can be related to your “half-life” story so to speak…

I very much enjoyed your essay. I don’t see ‘easy’ or ‘unchallenging’; what you have done is provide an intimate insight into the mundane. Everyday stuff that is often held as unremarkable and yet makes out lives. These are the pictures that I see and yet don’t take – you have done that for me and I appreciate your effort. The self-portrait? Mmm – that was the only one that I felt was stylised – photographers with their cameras – it’s been done too many times…

Otherwise, great stuff.

More challenging for whom? For the viewer or the photographer himself? What makes a story challenging?

It’s been an interesting read, the comments here under the essay and over under time out.. and it leaves me wondering just how important is the interpretation the photographer gives, and how much (a lot seems to me) on the other hand is projected into the essay by every viewer of her/his own feelings and experiences, or what intimacy means to everyone of us. Intimacy doesn’t stop at the nude, intimacy goes a lot deeper. In other words, nudity isn’t a prerogative of intimacy. Nudity isn’t expolitative per se. It depends what one interprets into nudity.

Edoardo, it will be interesting to see this work in a few years, how it will evolve, what will remain and what be added. Grazie per ora!

I read the text after more than several viewings of the pictures and it said just about exactly what I expected it to say. That’s because this story has been told countless times. A sensitive young artist solemnly contemplates existential mysteries while moving around Europe and becoming involved with any number of interesting, and so often photogenic, lovers. Cracking tile, stained bathtubs, old world rooftops and courtyards, and of course Italian nudes, all have cosmic significance. Or something like that. You can see that plainly from the photographs. It practically jumps right out of the text. But unfortunately, that story is a cliché. And unless you awake one morning to find yourself turned into a giant insect, or there’s some such innovative hook, it’s not a story a whole lot of people want to experience anymore. We’ve been there, done that, seen it countless times from other storytellers, and then moved on to more challenging stories.

So that’s my humble advice. A comfort zone is a dangerous place for an artist.
Contemplate how you can use your considerable skill to tell more challenging stories.

thanks so much for the positive, and less positive comments too, till now. I really enjoy the differences in your opinions.

Just a couple of clarfications…

The text above has been edited just a little bit, by Anton I think, cutting away a couple of lines where I explained that I usually don’t give such informations about this series. It was just for burn, a place where dialogue is encouraged, that I choosed to add some infos, just for you.

To Andrea, half life is the scientific term used tu describe “exponential decay” ;)

to bob: haha, I swear, that is not a penis, is just an elbow!!! Maybe sex is subliminal in that picture, for sure not conscious, it was just my ex girlfriend’s elbow on the beach, with some friends…

i usually ask of but one thing about photography that i look at, and that is that is attempt to express the condition of both photography and the act of living. As a photographer myself who believes in the act of viewer expectation a rich collision with the photographer’s story, i’ll always enjoy a story that allows me to feel my own story upon the one i’ve just watched…in other words, does it remind me of the simple act of being alive, or remembering….that was indeed Bergson’s real gift as a thinker, not that time is effluvial but that time negotiates us…..

though i’d wish to see more of YOU here in the intimacy (since there are lots of nude women) other than just 1 shot of a penis in silhoutte, what i enjoyed is the dreams like quality and the succession of odd pics…pics that are so personal (shots of windows, of irregularly framed lighting) as to remind that most of the time in our life we spend time looking not at ‘heroic/news-worthy moments’ (what i hate about the concept of news/decisive moments) but at the world arround, the pedestrian world, out our windows, at the sidewalk, our feet, our teeth/nose while brushing, all frame by simple things…

a private diary entry that offers to me another basic joy: the extraordinary love of the image….and that always makes me smile :))))

thanks for sharing your essay and cograts on being publised…

cheers
bob

ps. i agree with panos and the burat quote too ;))))))))))….

BTW, I wasn’t put off by the “narcissism” and “self-absorbed nature” of the pics. I didn’t really get that from the pics. I got that from your statement, but when I started looking at the pics, I forgot about the statement, which is another good thing.

As for that Jim guy up there, I don’t think he’s real. He’s a fictitious individual, dropped into this forum by his creator solely to play the role of “pain in the ass.”

This is a role that must always be filled.

I mean, it is very annoying to perceive your will to be present in every picture. It’s like, when you experience something, you only think about yourself, and I call that egoism, not self portraiture.

Paradoxically it is more honest the work of Cindy Sherman, which I do not like aesthetically , but at least she involves only herself in her series of auto biographical photographs, while you tend to impose yourself over everything and everyone.

I ‘d also like to stress that if you look deep into the work of documentary photographers, they don’t need to constantly refer to their themselves, as this comes up naturally from the photos anyway.

Nevertheless, I must compliment you for your fine sensitivity, eye and ability to produce extraordinary images.

Bravo