Unfortunately this essay took a wrong turn and you will never reclaim it with the same mindset that you have employed. If you are hell bent on pursuing this essay my suggestion is that you do some more research, start with a more substantial concept and a fresh set of images.

As the introductory text explains, this is about the decadence brought to an Italian village by the presence of the Mafia and its ‘cultural isolation’, right? Then I see some pictures of derelict houses, some portraits… A boy turned around…

I don’t see any essence in this work. The fact that it was done in one week is clearly a factor, but then there are pictures which (always in my humble opinion, of course) simply don’t communicate anything. There is very little content (figurative, abstract, indirect…), poor lighting (e.g. pictures 5, 9, 12, 14) and it left me with the feeling that a good idea was in the very earliest stages of being developed.

LOVE also the second photograph of the child….not only tender photograph, but for me, seems to set up the narrative…this is HIS dream, his home, his essay….the tenderness/nervousness of how he twitches the fingers of his left hand…the shape of his hair…he is an uncanny resemblance of my nephew, when he was 8, 9….the bit marks/scabs on his legs, the story of a child…and because we will not/cannot know his face, in a way, we cannot/will not know his story…..that image, coming second, sets up the entire rest of the essay for me….

his dream-tale….

Lee: what was it about this photograph that troubled you?…..

you may not know, but i love stories/narratives that are both abstract and conceptual…haunted…i have never really like the literal…doesn’t make sense to me at all, because it is this strange, mysterious causality of life that is so rich, so nutrient, so haunting…and so, the less i understand, the better….because the working toward understanding, the working toward poetry, the working toward working, is what makes live and ideas/stories so rich…at least for me…i dont want to be told anything, i want to discover it, grow toward awareness…get bugged…

as always, i look at an essay 2 or 3 times before reading the statement…and statements are tricky for me, since I am a writer and i incorporate text in my own photography (for essays, for exhibitions, as ‘prints’ themselves, words, etc), so i get nervous each time i read an artists statement….somehow, this statement, took away from the delerium i was experiencing with the pictures….the mystery, the nostalgia, the loss, is there…and, although i didn’t need it at first, when i saw the last picture, i wanted images from the outside more…

i am intrigued by what you’ve shown and where you will go….and i love your painterly pallette…..keep that in mind…

Jeff: WISE, ASTUTE comment! :)))…Alec and i talked about that idea over drinks before the Magenta talk…bang on….;))…..i wish more photographer and more viewers got that :)))…

the odd thing is that NONE of us know our OWN LIVES’ storyline…and yet we embrace it, for it’s oddity and strangeness and miraculous quality…why not the same….

Congrats Gianluca for your work and i look forward to seeing where it goes further….

Remember that child! :))

cheers
bob

This autumn I was privileged to attend a lecture given by Alec Soth. He presented a wonderful slide show of a road trip to visit William Eggleston, which he simultaneously narrated. Soth was able to tell a story both visually and verbally that would have escaped even the most associative and interpretive of critics. (He even stated such.) It was there that I realized that although one may never understand the narrative and purpose that a photo-essayist wishes to tell, it is the realization that there is an existing narrative that may be satisfaction enough. Similar to Robert Franks’ “The Americans”, here we need not know the storyline, we just need to accept that there is one. I get a strong feeling of the narrative in your essay, and agree with you that it beautifully tells a story – and tells it evocatively.

My imagination runs with your images, and on that level your essay is a success, but when I add your written preamble to the experience, my car becomes stuck in a snowbank, and no matter how much I shift forwards and reverse, my associations of the essay – to your words – remain spinning motionless. An almost complete impotence comes over me and I cannot relate your photographs to your images.

Lee Guthrie:

I’d like to know just what within the image of the little boy sets your anger so? I find it very tender; his head relative to the size of his body indicates his age – give or take – and to me he stands in the corner either for disciplinary reasons, or because there is something there that fascinates his youthful imagination.

To me, a few derelict architectural details and a handful of expressionless portraits don’t
do much to engage the viewer.

I don’t get, at all, the significance of the child image to the piece

Glad to see this essay on Burn, though. Keep pushing on.

Mike.

Photo one set the mood of pink, then anger with 2, past 3 and 4, and finally #5 I breathed easier. Then the door of #6. Four photos as foundation for this story (IMO). One week has given you a good place to begin finding the rest of the story. (IMO)

Thanks for sharing these and so glad to see you here on Burn.

congratulations to being published. The places look very abandoned and the pictures make appetite for more.