Roberto de Mitri

Roberto De Mitri

Born in Italy, I studied economics in Bologna and came late to photography.

Gradually, but inexorably, photography became my liviely fire and my congenial medium of expression, through which my visceral need to communicate feelings, sensations, upsets, finally found realization.

Photography was the way to give a face to ghosts, as shades to the deepest and unconscious turmoils of the soul. The camera, a medium through which is possible to explore a dimension that belongs not to the sensorial and rational experience, but to the experience of suggestion, of irrational and of the dream.

Consequently, photography refrains from imitating the external appearance of the real, slavishly reflecting what are the stereotyped features of the material. And, at the same time, the images became increasingly rough and dark, more and more indefinite and emotional.

In this way she creates metaphysical and surreal scenarios, as if they had arisen from the depths of our unconscious.

My Photography becomes a metaphorical expression and manifestation of a feeling. Allegorical illustration of the transience and emptiness of life. Of an existential condition profoundly marked by the sense of impermanence and chaos.

The light does not serve to tell the evidence. but it serves to bring out the shadows that hide inside us.

Geboren in Italien, habe ich Wirtschaftswissenschaften in Bologna, studiert und bin erst spät zur Fotgrafie gekommen.

Allmählich, aber unaufhaltsam, wurde die Fotografie zu meinem lebendigen Feuer und meinem kongenialen Ausdrucksmittel, durch das ich mein viszerales Bedürfnis, Gefühle, Empfindungen, Verwirrungen zu kommunizieren, umsetzen kann

Die Fotografie war der Weg, den Geistern ein Gesicht zu geben, als Schatten für die tiefsten und unbewussten Unruhen der Seele. Die Kamera, ein Medium, durch das es möglich ist, eine Dimension zu erforschen, die nicht zur sensorischen und rationalen Erfahrung gehört, sondern zur Erfahrung der Suggestion, des Irrationalen und des Traums.

Folglich verzichtet meine Fotografie darauf, das äußere Erscheinungsbild des Realen nachzuahmen und spiegelt sklavisch wider, was die stereotypen Merkmale des Materials sind. Und gleichzeitig wurden die Bilder immer rauer und dunkler, immer unbestimmter und emotionaler. Damit schafft sie metaphysische und surreale Szenarien, als ob sie aus den Tiefen unseres Unbewussten entstanden wären.

Die Fotografie wird  Allegorischen Darstellung der Vergänglichkeit und der Leere des Lebens. Von einem existentiellen Zustand, der zutiefst durch das Gefühl der Vergänglichkeit und des Chaos geprägt ist.  Das Licht dient nicht dazu, die Beweise zu erzählen, sondern es dient dazu, die Schatten hervorzuheben, die sich in uns verstecken.

General questions to photographers

- Since when do you take photographs and how did you get in touch with photography for the first time? On which themes did you focus your work first?

As I had the opportunity to write before, I have always been interested in photography. Since childhood. But my first encounter with photography “took place”, very pragmatically, when it was possible to buy my first camera, a digital SLR camera, a Pentax K20D. It opened up before me a potentially infinite space of creativity that I never suspected. A camera that I still continue to use for my "daily" photos and that even now is on my desk. But in a short time I understood that digital photography did not have great appeal on me. All my photos were the result of enthusiasm, but my attention and my interest did not focus on particular topics or subjects, on defined techniques and styles. There was a lot “euphoric impulse”, but “de facto” there was no logic or “vision” in the photographic process and in the act. Although I took pictures of all kinds, I felt that wasn't my address and my direction. That was not the photographic genre I wanted to do. Heart and mind went in the direction of film and analogue photography in black and white. We can say I am completely and happily slave now of the poetics and aesthetics of the black and white film.

- Did you deal with staged photography from the start or did you begin with a different field of photography?

Behind the first photos there was a lot of enthusiasm but there was no logic. No overview. No structured project. You can also be the best photographer in the world, from a technical and knowledge point of view. But if you have nothing in you to tell, then your photos will never have anything to say. And my photos were like that. Flat and expressionless. Free of any content. It was only after a few years that my photos began to take on an emotional and expressive form. I think that my first real photos, those of seascapes and those of “city of ghosts”, have naturally emerged from my condition of depression. I had begun to see the world with completely different eyes. There was nothing definite and certain anymore. it was as if the mirror that reflected the illusory appearance of reality had definitely shattered to reveal it for what it really is. An annihilating space of alienation and misunderstanding. The mirage of an objective reality dissolved and gave way to the emptiness of the soul. A claustrophobic, suffocating emptiness. Blind.

The boundaries between what is true and what is false overlap and merge, the substance fades and loses definition. Our life has no certainties or polar stars. the truth is that we are at the mercy of a stream of chaotic events that we cannot in any way control. And this is our natural human condition.

And this is also the context in which my photos are born. the sea and the sea landscapes are perfect to describe, allegorically, this condition.

And this is also the context in which my photos are born. The sea and seascapes are perfect to describe, allegorically, this condition. The sea can become a perfect mirror of our mood. And become a manifestation of our feelings and our anxieties. The landscapes take on the appearance of lunar places. a Limbo made up of endless empty spaces and forgetfulness and solitude. perhaps only the howling of the wind can be felt.

And a similar speech can be made for the photos of "city of ghosts",  which even more witness the crumbling of objective reality. That “city” is an abstract indefinable, densely populated by endless adrift voids. On the stage of this theater, touching lives, they consume and lose themselves. Existences destined to repel and never understand one another. it is ephemeral dimension, a place of lies and illusions. But also of silences, alienations and dissipated dreams.

- Did you have a regular photographic education? How did you intensify, extend and refine your photographic knowledge and skills?

I have no photographic education of any kind. I'm a complete self-taught. I don't have a basic technical education. Or artistic. When I started doing photography on black and white film, I didn't know anything about photographic technique or development. I did not know the technical language or the correct terminology. But with time and experience, I have learned to do and know everything that was necessary for my way of doing photography. Over the years, I have developed my own method and I cannot say whether this method is “orthodox” or efficient. but it is my method. All I need to know, I know. And all what I know, I know because it was necessary to learn it in order to do what I wanted to do. So there's a lot of experience at the base. and a constant refinement of the technique in function of an increasingly organic, specific and personal photographic vision.

- Could you give the readers some general and technical information about your photography, such as taking techniques, post processing, lighting, locations (studio / outside) etc.?

honestly, I don't know what kind of advice to give to anyone. there is never great preparation or planning in what I do. and I've always been used to exploiting what I had available at the time and to follow the light conditions. it's much more fun to improvise (where improvising does not mean not being aware of what you are doing at the moment), to imagine at the moment which photo to do. I always use natural light. As much as a person can control the greatest possible number of variables and set the ideal scenario within a study, I am convinced that nothing can be compared to the suggestions of natural light. A light that cannot be reproduced in any way, so in the same way the kind of emotions that it is able to arouse.

I can decide which type of photo to take depending on the brightness and general weather conditions. What type of film to use, what exposure time to use. All this because I can never foresee what kind of conditions I will find. On the contrary, I have always found it very limiting to take photos in a photographic studio. But it is also true that my photography is very emotional. and it is very much influenced by my mood. and, of course, it's not always possible to do what I want to do.

So I have no particular advice. Perhaps the only suggestion that comes to mind is to always try to find pleasure in what you are doing. Always make the photos you want to make. If you like doing what you're doing, everything else will follow accordingly... the development of a personal method, as well as what kind of post production to operate, what kind of camera to use...

- What does photography mean to you? Is it more a creative leisure activity or more? Do you follow a certain concept? Is there anything you try to transmit to the viewer in your photographs?

Easy to say that photography represents, in concrete terms, a very important part of my life. And it is absolutely so. I raised a whole world around it and around everything about it. A world completely detached from the real one, made up of everyday life and everyday worries. A world made exclusively of joy, in which I take refuge and where only and exclusively the things I love converge. And year after year, this world is becoming increasingly structured, rich and happy.

It is like a drug that does not obscure the senses and the mind, but that feeds the imagination and creativity. Photography is a constant journey. It's a profound exploration of yourself. It is your urgency to transmit all of yourself in images. and I love photography for these endless possibilities that it gives me.

So if there is something "conceptual" behind my photography, it is the persistent need to make of it my primary means of communication; a "medium" by which phantoms, feelings, thoughts, anguishes find definitive expression in the image.

If it is true that photography is my congenial means of expression, it is equally true that I have always considered all my photos open to interpretation. There is no single reading key and I don't impose my version. Everyone is free to read them the way they like. Everyone is free to see what they are looking for in them. Everyone is free to get sensations and suggestions according to his/her sensitivity. I often consider my photos like Rorschach tests in pictures.

so my hope is that my photos have the strength to convey emotions and have communicative content. everyone is then free to receive different emotions and suggestions according to their own experiences and sensibilities.

- Do you have photographic ideals with respect to other photographers or artists on different fields?

- How do you find your models? Are they mostly amateurs or professionals? Do you often change your models or do you prefer to work with certain individuals over a longer period of time?

I've never looked for models to work with and to take pictures with. but I've always found friends. I need to know the person with whom I take pictures, I need to establish an empathic bond, when possible. to obtain a certain result, to give expression to the photos, we need to establish an empathic dialogue with the person in front of us, in my opinion. we must push on the strings of emotion. I think knowing well a person helps me a lot to make the photos I want to take. it helps me to realize the ideas and visions that come to mind. working with a person you know, above all if he/she is your friend, makes everything more enjoyable and even more intense. instead, working with a person with whom you have established an exclusively professional relationship (by definition, a model) is, however, always very limiting in my way of thinking.

- Are there certain locations you prefer and how do you find them?

I love to travel. my passion for traveling blends perfectly with my love for photography. so certainly there are places where I love to go back and that I love to photograph. my first photos of seascapes have been taken along the coast where I live.

but a place that has given me so many satisfactions (also in terms of photographic competitions won) and so many beautiful photos is certainly the sea of Riga with its endless white beaches of the Gulf.

there are other places and other landscapes linked, instead, to friends. and for this reason, I love them doubly ...

- Are there any plans for new projects, techniques etc.?

Web www.roberto-demitri.net