Photography means for me the eternal quest for beauty which touches my soul. Beauty can lie in many things. Nature, architecture, shapes, graphic patterns, colours, even decay can be extremely beautiful. True beauty doesn't lie in intimidating perfection and it has no age but grace. It is not showing off but shines humbly through natural elegance. Beauty must go far beyond the surface, it must strike me. And nothing strikes me more than the beauty of the human face and body.

But this face must belong to a real person. And to produce outstanding photography, I must like that person and vice versa. In perfection, it's almost like a momentary love affair through the lens. As I understand it, portraiture is a highly interactive, interdependent process. In the end, I can only materialize the picture, you are ready to give to me. The higher the level of mutual trust and respect, the better the pictures will be. They will be proof of an intimate, even magical moment we were able to create together. For this reason, I always work alone with you. I do not want to be distracted neither by other people nor by tons of equipment. Reduce to the max, simplicity. It's just you and me – perfect concentration, nothing else.

I am a photographer not a photoshop painter nor a plastic surgeon. I rarely even crop my original pictures because I want to make you see exactly the same that I saw when opening the shutter for a fraction of a second. Of course, I work with photoshop, have to. It is an intermediate step on the way to the final product. I like to play with colours, contrast, lights and shades to enhance the intention of the picture or prepare it for a fine art print but I don't cheat, there are too many out there who do and who are not aware that we are more than fed up with it …

Although I appreciate the advantages of digital photography (especially in the studio) I still love to work with my analogue cameras, a Canon F-1N or a Hasselblad 501 CM. I believe that film with its natural imperfection and limitations reflects much better the way we can see with our own eyes than a sensor that collects pixels. However, I like both – it's finally just the tool to visualize what's already there in front of my inner eye.

"Art is the highest form of communication" [Oliviero Toscani, 2014]. Photography is my way to communicate. My motivation is purely an intrinsic one. I am fortunate enough that I don't have to make a living of it but do what I feel passionate about.

Tags

See All Tags (10)