At first glance some of Fulvio Bortolozzo's work , especially the daylight pictures, seems like Basilico in colour - which isn't a bad thing at all. There are a lot of images on his site (which is mainly in Italian). I also think I can detect the influence of Luigi Ghirri, who seems sadly so little known outside Italy. And yes, I'm still a sucker for urban and suburban cityscapes. Certainly there is a lot of it out there - but for a a huge percentage of us in the West, it's where we live. We might like to take our vacations by the sea or in Morocco or Costa Rica, but we spend most of our lives in the places these photographers depict. I certainly don't think this vein has been at all exhausted in terms of photographers trying to understand it and make some kind of sense out of it by means of their work (though it's getting harder, and the bar should certainly keep being raised).
Bortolozzo has managed to depict something of the contemporary Italian urban condition and has done so while making use of a subtle - almost beautiful - colour palette. But he never prettifies it.
A while ago I had grown a little weary of the amount of urban night photogaphy that seemed to be coming at us. I don't know if it's that the stream has dried up a bit now, or the quality has improved, but I've come across a few examples recently that don't seem nearly so repetitive (I'll probably post more soon).
Fulvio has some night work on his site that is certainly worth looking at. I like especially his Olimpia where the work becomes the trace of Bortolozzo's walking through the nocturnal cityscape of the new olympic Torino and also the wider theme of Scene di passaggio (Soap Opera) where the work puts in chronological sequence the representations of the places that are the scenic spaces for the Soap Opera in which I play the protagonist role: my life. I love the idea of "the soap opera that is my life..."
2 comments:
Agree that there's been a lot of stuff on suburban cityscapes in the last decade or so. And I also feel that most of it is not terribly exiting. The problem IMO is that unless someone possess a very strong individual approach to the subject it's very easy to imitate previous work and become repetitive. More so than in other fields of photography, not sure why. That said I like these pictures, the formal rigor works well with the subtle colors. Just wish the photographer was a bit more selective with the number of images on his site.
I agree - up to a point...
I think the individual approach is important, though there is a danger of novelty creeping in, or else you end up with those sort of swatch book of urban kitsch type series.
I think in this kind of photography, viewing a project overalls important, is is rigour in approach and trying to speak to something specific rather than more general.
IMO is that unless someone possess a very strong individual approach to the subject it's very easy to imitate previous work and become repetitive. More so than in other fields of photography, not sure why.
except for the contemporary portrait...!
I'm hoping to link to another photographers work later this week that is along similar lines, but which I think also doesn't quite fall into this trap
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