When I was a kid I realised...
that elegance and beauty are actually transverse,
they cross time.
I started in the late 70s,
the phenomenon of Italian fashion did not exist yet.
An incredible thing happened.
I rose through the ranks,
for 7 years I did weddings, religious ceremonies, duplicates...
anything really, but that is how I learned.
When I felt ready,
the "Made in Italy" burst, in Milan, my home,
together with Italian fashion, a very unexpected phenomenon.
My choice of rethinking an elegant world,
placed me out of time.
At the beginning it was not on purpose,
but it made my pictures resistant to time, more than others.
They are not linked to a specific moment.
I think there exist only two families of photographers,
those who have a reporter soul,
they are extremely skilful in synthetizing an event
that occurs in the real world.
The others are descended from painting,
like myself,
they believe this profession is the pantomime of the world,
the mise-en-scène of the world.
I do not speak about reality,
somehow I am not even interested in reality,
I am interested in rethinking a parallel reality,
which is, as I said, the mise-en-scène of reality.
We are not neutral, nobody is really neutral,
even war photography is a mise-en-scène of the war,
it is not the real war. it is a still frame of the war,
in which you took choices that are emotional,
that's what an author has to do.
They must see you, filter you, sense you,
and take a picture of you as they see you.
This is a very personal thought,
but I think digital photography is the birth of photography.
Anything that was done before is photographic archaeology.
The entry of electronics in photography...
expanded and strengthened photographic abilities.
Photography has become a language, with mobile phones for example,
the entire humanity has a camera in their pockets,
it is not a question of means, but rather of personal genius,
no technical means can restrain it.
It is not correct to say it is easier to take pictures,
the difference is that we used to take a lot of choices beforehand,
sensitivity of the film, filter, grain, etc.
Then you took the picture and submitted it.
Now it is much more difficult, you need to have the photo,
and do the post-production,
you have to take afterwards the choices you took beforehand.
The "how" does not matter, I am only interested in the "what".
Let's consider selfies, an interesting example.
We started from the portraits of the great Renaissance tradition,
and we got to selfies. Are they self-portraits?
Of course they are,
just because they were taken with a phone they have no dignity?
What matters is only the result. How important is how you took it?
We should be happy that the world is taking pictures,
it is nice that everybody owns a camera, it's the beginning.