Audioteca Fotográfica

"Remember Who You Once Were" is not just a collection of images, it’s a reflection of a personal journey and a call to awaken something deeper within. It’s about rediscovering what was lost or forgotten, reconnecting with the raw, untamed parts of ourselves that society often pushes aside. This project was born out of a desire to explore what happens when we disconnect from who we truly are, and the process of reconnecting with that essential, wild self. The quote by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, "Bone by bone, hair by hair, Wild Woman comes back, through night dreams, through events half understood and half remembered…" resonates deeply with me. It’s a powerful metaphor for the reclamation of one’s true nature, an ongoing process of shedding the layers we’ve accumulated over time, expectations, fears, societal pressures and returning to something primal and authentic. Through my work, I’ve been exploring that tension, the space between who we are told to be and who we are deep down. The act of searching for the hidden self is a delicate and intimate journey. It’s not always clear or linear, and at times it feels like a struggle between letting go of old identities and embracing new ones. In this process, I’ve used photography as a way to capture moments that reflect both the struggle and the beauty of transformation. For me, the images are not just about capturing what’s visible but about symbolizing something internal, a shift from external noise to inner silence. They evoke the process of stepping away from the world to recharge, to reconnect with the instinctive, powerful self that exists within each of us. Text & voice : Elizabeth Alderliesten + info www.audiotecafotografica.com The deeper I delve into the theme of transformation, the more I realize it’s about embracing vulnerability and authenticity. The act of reconnecting with my inner self has often felt like being reborn, letting go of the constraints of societal expectations and feeling free to grow into my true form.

ELIZABETH ALDERLIESTEN Dordrecht (NL), 1972 Elizabeth Alderliesten is a Dutch artist and her main medium is analog photography. She currently lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium. FRESH EYES Photo selected her as one of the 100 greatest emerging photography talents in Europe of 2020, she is featured on one of the four covers of the yearbook. She is also included in GUP New Photo Talent yearbook 2020. She attends the year-long Photobook Workshop with Nearest Truth last year. In 2022 she participated in a workshop with Dirk Braeckman and Brad Feuerhelm in Athens. From 2020 until 2022 she attended Le Masterklass with Klavdij Sluban in Paris. In 2019 she followed an Masterclass with Machiel Botman in Amsterdam. She graduated from the Fotoacademie in Amsterdam in 2019. https://www.elizabethalderliesten.nl/ Text & voice: Elizabeth Alderliesten + info www.audiotecafotografica.com

THE RIDGE is the name of a strip of forest that cuts through New Delhi from north to south, set on the hills of an ancient mountain, the Aravalli Range. Until the 19th century, it spanned rugged, rocky terrain, later reforested by the British with the aim of creating a colonial garden. To achieve this, they introduced a tree from Central America called Prosopis juliflora, which quickly spread across the region, altering the landscape: the trees grew, and the hills became covered with shrubs and undergrowth. Slowly, the garden transformed into a jungle, protected by its own density. One morning, I found a cluster of houses by the forest that I had never seen before. There, a fallen but still living tree stretched across the main street, blocking cars from entering an area full of small gardens. “We don’t move the tree; this way the road stays empty. In Khyber Pass,” they told me, “we love silence.” The men shelter from the rain and talk beneath the trees, under the large rocks where children play. I often returned to one of the houses, on whose rooftop two peacocks nested, unaware—just like me—that the neighbourhood was disappearing. There, nothing moves, and each place delivers its message through what it discreetly reveals: a luminous presence that lingers, a plant that rises and waits. https://www.materiasolar.com/ Text: Pablo López Voice: J. (AI)

In the place where I write, there are several images that make me reflect on my bond with photography. One of them shows a mound of earth, its outline resembling a mountain range darkened by clouds. Is it a mountain, or simply a pyramid of sand? Close by, I’ve placed a small branch from a forest in India: it still holds each of its leaves, now tinged with yellow. In Delhi, I photographed trees along the roadside, trees by rivers, and behind walls. The images speak to one another, and my eyes move from one to the next, tracing similarities. Through these elements, the landscape has taught me its language—one made of shimmering shadows and stones. My work is to find the right distance, listening closely, because only attention will make me pause when the murmur that precedes an image begins. It is out in the field—in the midst of the work—where fatigue becomes part of the experience, and the feeling prevails that nothing more will happen. Only the commitment to that emptiness matters, to this earthly dedication we have embraced. Some photographs, I think, keep alive the mystery of the visible. Perhaps they emerged from an elemental love for surfaces, for the quiet way the world settles. I’d like to trace that ancient mystery, and under the pretext of documentation, wander through an undefined terrain, shaped by form and silence.

My way of working is often erratic and spontaneous. I rarely see images as part of a series, and can shoot anything from a piece of orange peel, a shaggy street cat or a stranger’s nose in a shop window reflection within a few short moments of each other. In the early days of social media (I used Flickr and Tumblr) I remember being struck by the strange allure of seeing a grid of images lined up, all on one page. Each pixel-filled square is autonomous yet, at the same time, a narrative is still present. It seemed to me that within the confinement of this space, a lot could happen. The broader the scope, somehow the richer the imagery appears. With this, my hard drive becomes a vital tool and searching through an ever-growing arsenal of images is a perpetual process - one where I continue to hop from place to place. Working spontaneously, with only perhaps a vague idea of what I hope to create, means that I’m more receptive to possibilities. Images can suddenly become imbued with meaning, and variables such as chance and what I call 'a certain trained laziness' (permanently having a bank of unclosed files in photoshop) can come into play. It’s a tempting question to ask, but the meaning of what ‘lies behind’ an image does not interest me at all. I have felt for some time that my role is to just be a vehicle to whatever transpires. I adopt this approach also with my painting, which feels even more physical - a channeling of some unknown force, or sometimes a simple desire to be understood without words. Voice-text-photo : Lydia Roberts https://www.lydia-roberts.com/ + info www.audiotecafotografica.com

Lydia Roberts b.1994 is an artist and photographer from England. The root of her interest lies within image making that remains unaffected by time, with the human form emerging as a reoccurring motif. She currently lives and works in the Occitanie region of France. https://www.lydia-roberts.com/ Text and voice: Lydia Roberts + info www.audiotecafotografica.com

Inspired by Walker's photographs, especially the remarkable portraits he made in 1936 of sharecropper families in Hale County Alabama, 1 bought a used 4x5 Deardorff view camera and spent the summer of 1972 in Brantville, New Brunswick Canada, small Acadian fishing village. As a volunteer with the Quebec Labrador Foundation, I ran a day camp for the local children and lived with fisherman Ulysse Thibodeau, his wife Jeannette and their three young children. When I wasn't making puppets or playing Capture the Flag with campers, I was making photographs of the Thibodeaus and their extended family and friends. They were my eager and generous collaborators whenever I set up my view camera that summer and on three more visits to Brantville. The field next to our house became a constantly changing stage for making photographs. There were several small houses, a barn, often a car or truck or boat, bicycles, laundry, a rabbit hutch and pig pen, buoys, lobster traps, and, in winter fishing nets hanging on poles. I don’t remember anyone ever refusing to be photographed. On the contrary, children and adults, too, were happy to be photographed. A view camera was new to everyone and made the process special. They were fascinated watching me open the camera, disappear under my black cloth, and begin making adjustments to the camera but also giving them suggestions. Then I would come out from the black cloth, hold the shutter release, and watch closely. When I saw an expression or gesture or the light shift slightly, I tripped the shutter. I think it was a combination of wanting to help me and delighting in being seen. During the pandemic, isolated from my family and friends, I revisited my Brantville negatives. My friends in Brantville were as excited as I was to see what I printed (many prints were from negatives I printed for the first time) and to celebrate the exhibition of the work at Beaverbrook Art Gallery, the official museum of New Brunswick. Stanley Barker Books (London) has published Brantville, 50 black and white photographs made between 1972 and 1974. https://www.stanleybarker.co.uk/products/brantville Text: Melinda Blauvelt Voice: Juniper (AI) + info www.audiotecafotografica.com

Melinda Blauvelt studied photography at Yale with Walker Evans, was the first woman in Yale’s MFA photography program, went on to teach at Harvard, and has her pictures in major museums throughout the United States. Inspired by Evans’ 1930s photographs of rural America, she began a unique project in 1972, which she only recently unearthed and printed.Melinda decided to spend that summer photographing the small fishing village of Brantville, New Brunswick. She lived with a fisherman and his family, ran a day camp, and made remarkable portraits of the village residents. Bill Shapiro, former editor of Life magazine, calls her Brantville images “quietly riveting, somehow managing to be big-hearted while not sentimental, clear-eyed but not cynical, highlighting our human quirks and our warmth in equal measure.” This important collection of black & white photographs depicts a time when New Brunswick, and particularly the Acadian Peninsula, was going through deep social changes. They speak to the values of community, family, and the ability of brilliant images to frame and extend our ability to truly see a place. https://melindablauvelt.com/ Text: Melinda Blauvelt Photograph: ©Chad Floyd in @1973 in Brantville NB Canada Voice: Juniper (AI) + info www.audiotecafotografica.com

As with many projects, “hearth” was born from a collection of photos that, at first glance, seemed unconnected, like a bunch of beads with different shapes and sizes that have been forgotten at the bottom of a plastic box. There is something playful about photographic projects that fascinates me. They are like putting together a necklace with different pieces, where the challenge is to find their place, imagine the missing ones and assemble them until, in the end, an organic whole is formed where each image flows into the next. Although the pieces had different shapes and sizes, they shared the same color: a tinge of latent nostalgia, a kind of tone of longing that helped me to begin to weave them together and ask myself questions. Over the course of a year, with the support of Veronica Fieiras, I gave shape to this necklace. These images were made between my adopted France and my native Argentina, and began to intertwine with archives, video excerpts and documents. Thus, they became an essay on uprootedness, sense of belonging and the concept of home, entitled “hearth”. In Old English, the word refers both to the place where one lives (home) and to the fire that gathers the family and the community (fireplace). A home is not built with bricks. https://maximilianotineo.com/ Text: Maximiliano Tineo Voice: Chris (AI) + info www.audiotecafotografica.com

I feel that I cannot photograph anything that I don’t feel related to, so I remain attentive to the type of vibration in which I can recognize myself. From the beginning, photography has been deeply connected with evasion, with that need to separate myself from the world I was in. Maybe that's why it has always been linked to movement, accompanying me in my escapes and functioning as an escape valve. First as a companion of writing, and then occupying more and more space, until it became the main vector of the narrative. From this need to escape, trips emerged. In my evasion, I went far, far away, crossing other continents, inhabiting places with languages other than my own, exiling myself voluntarily. In the desert, for example, solitude is so pure that it admits no excuses. The camera was always there, like a silent witness, documenting not only what was happening outside, but also what was happening inside. Because when I take pictures, I become a mirror, yes, but the reflections that I project are also rooted in my guts. Photography, writing, and fanzine publishing have been the media that have portrayed my search for a home, a place and a time from which I no longer want to escape. https://maximilianotineo.com/ Text: Maximiliano Tineo Voice: Chris (AI) + info www.audiotecafotografica.com

One of my favourite quotes on family is from the flawed psychiatrist, R.D. Laing. He wrote that ‘The family may be imagined as a web, a flower, a tomb, a prison, a castle.’ You can take it further and deepen your analysis. If your family is a flower, what kind of flower is it? Is it a rose that pricks, a nettle that stings, or bindweed that twists and winds and throttles. I like that quote because it talks of the complexity of family life, the roles, the relationships, the difficulties we have in negotiating every aspect of it. That difficulty, that dysfunction is the norm. So, few of us have super functional family lives where lying, deceit, cruelty, envy, depression, and despair don’t play their part alongside the warmth, security, comfort, and love. I try to bring some of those elements to my photography of the worlds that surround me, to add some nuance, to hint at the struggles that lie beyond the image. I do this in projects like Sofa Portraits where I see in Isabel the delight, the magic, but also the fatigue and boredom of childhood. I remember it well. In the mental load of motherhood, I saw the exhaustion, both physical and mental, of Katherine as she lost herself in her new role of being a mother. She was and is an amazing mother. But you pay a price for that. The other reason I like that Laing quote is photography can be imagined in the same way. It can be a web, a flower, a tomb. It can celebrate, depress, insult, or demean. It can do many things. Photography has many uses. I like the idea that you shouldn’t only look at what’s in a photograph. You should also look at what a photograph was made for, who it was made for, what it does. Don’t ask for the meaning, ask for the use. Was it made to sooth, to prick, to defend, or to attack? Was it made to reveal or to be a mask. My photographs reveal. My parents in Woolley slips under the skin of who they are. It reveals a moment in their lives that shifts with time. It was the last time my father was photographed with glasses, the last time they made that walk. Now that my father has passed away, it has become something else again. Life changes. Photography changes. Nothing is fixed, and nothing stays still. https://www.colinpantall.com/ Text: Colin Pantall Voice: AI + info: www.audiotecafotografica.com

“Reverting”reflects a profound material connection between the landscape and image-making,exploring environmental issues and the objectification of nature in Iceland.Created during my residency with the SIM program, this project merges photography and printmaking through material experimentation, seeking alternative ways to engage with the landscape. Issues like gentrification, waste, and environmental degradation, largely driven by tourism, challenge the idealized image of Iceland’s natural beauty. During my stay, I photographed popular sites such as Reynisfjara and Vatnajökull, reinterpreting them by combining these images with handmade recycled paper crafted from waste. This process echoes the transformative act of creating something from nothing—a kind of alchemy of waste—that underscores the fragile balance of our environment and the unending cycle it follows. https://www.frangc.com/reverting https://www.frangc.com/reverting Text and photograph: Francisco González Camacho Voice: AI + info www.audiotecafotografica.com

Francisco Gonzalez Camacho (b. 1990) is a Spanish visual artist based in Helsinki, Finland. ​Gonzalez Camacho's work presents a process-based approach interweaving photography and graphic printing methods. His practice is a result of intuitive exploration centered around themes such as materiality, immigration and the connectedness between landscape and self. https://www.frangc.com/ Text: Francisco González Camacho Voice: AI + info www.audiotecafotografica.com

In the Catholic church there are three classes of relics. The first class is body parts of a saint. The second class is things that belonged to a saint, objects they have used and surrounded themselves with. The third class is the object that touched the body of a saint. To create the third class relics, the small holes are drilled in the tombs of saints. The objects are lowered through the holes and once they touch the corpse they are no longer everyday and mundane - they now become sacred. Meteorites, boulders, rocks, stones A child-like obsession that began innocently, fueled with curiosity: What stories does a rock whisper? Ancient mythology is filled with cautionary tales where young, eloquent females were punished for their outspokenness and turned into rocks. A curse of Medusa meant that she transformed anyone she looked at into a rock: mute, passive, motionless and unable to express. Some rocks were believed to be gods, chained to the ground in case they decided to make a return to heavens, celebrated, feared. Some took on central roles in the communities, becoming places of worship, grief, and sacrifice. For over two years, I have been collecting rock stories. Many of them belong to folk people, such as my ancestors: collectively woven myths that gave ground to caring rituals of relating to space the land to one another. Over time these stories fluctuate, gently passed for generations. The longer I give in to my obsession, the more I begin to believe that a rock is not mute at all, but, perhaps, the most excellent storyteller of them all. ‘I saw a tree bearing stones in the place of apples and pears’ is an exploration of a rock as a carrier of stories, a migratory body, a silent, mysterious visitor, filled with projections, dreams and fears. It is an investigation of the myths, stories and rituals and an act of reclaiming them back. https://www.emiliamartin.com/ Text: Emilia Martin Voice: Emilia Martin + info www.audiotecafotografica.com

I grew up in between two radically different realities: a remote farm of my grandmother in rural Eastern Poland and Silesia – a heavy industry coal mining urban region in the West of the country. A clash between these two realities, the narrative of patriarchy and extractivism against the rural mythologies and sublime formed a place where I found myself at home and which continues to be a ground that nurtures my artistic practice. In my work I explore the power of speculation and reimagining of the realities I inhabit. I perceive myths, tales and storytelling to be effective tools for revisioning the past and weaving liveable futures that I wish to inhabit. With the use of speculation and shifting perspectives I revise and construct personal narratives informed by the intersectional feminist approaches. I seek nuanced ethical and inclusive approaches. I believe in collaborations and encounters based on vulnerability and authenticity and I consider myself and my creative work to be a part of a bigger ecosystem. I am one of the founders and a member of Radio Echo Collective (radioecho.net) - an intersectional feminist online radio platform dedicated to creating spaces for the diversity of voices to thrive. https://emiliamartin.com/ Text & voice: Emilia Martin + info: www.audiotecafotografica.com

These ten images, though they may seem fragmentary at first glance, tell a coherent story that reflects my photographic journey. The first is from New York, a city that has always fascinated me. During those days, my camera was my constant companion. I roamed the streets endlessly, capturing the life around me from sunset to sunrise, particularly enjoying the warm summer nights that offered spontaneous moments to photograph. The second image is from Tbilisi, the city I’ve photographed the most after New York. In the mirror’s reflection is Valentina, one of the first people who allowed me that proximity which, over time, became a fundamental part of my work. Through her, I discovered how to delve into the intimacy of my subjects, forging deeper and more genuine connections, an approach that has shaped my way of photographing ever since. The following two photos are part of my series on Tusheti, where I documented the lives of shepherds in Georgia for nearly four years. During this project, I switched to analogue photography, and I’ve stuck with it ever since. The image of the lamb on the bed evokes the biblical aspects of this austere life. The core of the series is the journey the shepherds make across the mountains twice a year. In one of the images, a man stands in the snow, surrounded by his flock of sheep, at the highest point of that journey, symbolising the effort and resilience required for these journeys. The following three images are from my story "On the Road Home". This series reflects my family's ongoing search for a place we can truly call home. It’s an evolving story because just when we think we’ve found it, something happens that forces us to continue searching. These photos capture that feeling of uncertainty, the idea that home is still something we’re building. The final three images are from Ukraine. The first two were taken before the war, while the last was captured just as the conflict began. Ukraine holds a very important place in my life, and I felt these images needed to be part of this selection, not only for their personal significance but also for the story they tell. Each of these images is more than just an isolated photograph; together, they form a narrative of my artistic and personal evolution. They reflect my constant search for connection, for closeness, and for a sense of home, amid the people, places, and moments I’ve encountered along the way. Text: Dmitry Gomberg Voice: Chris (AI) + info www.audiotecafotografica.com

Was born in Moscow in 1980. Moved to New York in 2000. After changing many jobs and professions, got into photography in 2005. Went to the ICP, finished one-year course in documentary. Soon after the ICP moved to the Republic of Georgia where was introduced to the life of high mountain shepherds in Tusheti. Stayed with them for 5 years. All this resulted in hundreds of photographs and a dream to make a book. https://www.instagram.com/dmitrygomberg/ Text: Dmitry Gomberg Voice: Chris (AI) + info: www.audiotecafotografica.com

The portraits I create are an attempt to glimpse into another person’s life, to lift the veil of mystery through human nature slightly. In my interaction with the models, a kind of symbiotic relationship forms, almost like a marriage, one based on mutual respect where we both contribute equally, 50/50. What emerges in the photograph is not just the subject but something deeper. It’s important to me to convey a sense of harmony, as if the person is immersed in their own world, at peace and in solitude. Thus, in every photograph, there is a part of me and a part of the subject, creating something new—a third element. It is a new world, one that can only be accessed through the camera, and it is both beautiful and slightly melancholic. https://katya-berestova.photographer.ru/ Text and photo: Katya Berestova Voice: Rosalind (AI)

Born in St. Petersburg in 1992. Painter/graphic artist, poetess (Samoucha) Since 2018, member of the Union of Artists "Solaris". Since 2018, member of the Union of Russian Photographers. Since 2019, he has been teaching a course on the topic “Analytical Artistic Composition.” In 2021, the first photo book KOLOKOL was published in Besard edition Paris.Nominated for 2022 Foam Paul Huf Award 2022 Amsterdam In 2022, I tried my hand at directing, and now I have three films in the works. In 2023, the photo book "DREAM N3" will be published by the publishing house "Print Gallery" St. Petersburg since 2024 it has been part of the secretariat of the Moscow branch of the Union of Photographers of Russia and a member of the jury of the Union of Photographers of Russia The photographs are in private Russian and European collections. In 2024 photo book "Out of Time" edition Skeleton Key Press, Norway. https://katya-berestova.photographer.ru/ Text and photo: Katya Berestova Voice: Rosalind (AI) + info wwww.audiotecafotografica.com

I was born and raised in the Mormon church in Salt Lake City, Utah, the church’s headquarters. With the church dominating the state’s population and politics, the cultural atmosphere shapes much of the identity of those who grow up in Utah. When you leave the church, you can feel like a pariah, cut off from the central structures of your community, and everything becomes cast in ambiguity. This sense of uncertainty and dislocation has seeped into the way I photograph and the subjects I am drawn to. My work often reflects this tension between belonging and isolation, transcendance and being lost. One of my main focuses has been a long-term project centered on these themes. I'm fascinated by the idea that every light casts a shadow. Seemingly almost everything in Utah has a strong religious undercurrent. It seems like there is irony and metaphor everywhere. It’s a strange place. A peculiar beauty. Light, faith, darkness, doubt, rigidity, tradition, ceremony, all dancing. As time has gone by, I have taken on additional projects, yet many of the same themes reappear in my work. Ambiguity seems to permeate everything and I find myself gravitating towards subjects who, like me, are grappling with their own uncertainties. Because it’s not just religion we grapple with, it's this land, America as a whole. We are individuals who are suspended between worlds—navigating transitions, facing contradictions, or standing at the crossroads of identity and belief, ethos. Talking about it now is almost awkward. The tale you tell yourself as a photographer, as to what you are photographing and why? Is often just a reflection of how you feel, and what fires you have walked through. We are all wrestling with our histories, our gods, our pasts, the altars we pray at. My work is an attempt at resolution. An exercise of faith, from a faithless person. https://jordanutley.com/ Text: Jordan Utley Voice: Chris (AI) + info www.audiotecafotografica.com

Jordan Utley is a photographer based in Salt Lake City, Utah. The majority of his career has been focused on the moving image, resulting in many accolades and awards. Including the 2012 Nora Cup and a feature in the Warsaw Museum of Modern Art. In 2019, after several important lifestyle changes he redirected his focus to Documentary Photography in hopes of creating more meaningful work. In 2022, His work was featured in the non-fiction book "Out Here On Our Own: An Oral History of an American Boomtown". Published by the University of Nebraska Press. More recently, His work has been published in Hamburger Eyes, Tropical Stomp, Booooooom's collective book, "Pictures and Songs", and is soon to be featured in the forthcoming Zone collective book. https://jordanutley.com/ Text: Jordan Utley Voice: Chris (AI)

I started this body of work, “Within the Mountain,” because I was unable to do otherwise when I was surrounded by so much unknown beauty. During a hiking trip in the Dolomites, a region of the Italian Alps, I was struck by the sight of countless cows grazing freely, unfettered by enclosures. This sparked my curiosity, and the way I can dive deeper into my curiosity and unravel it is with a camera. Walking up to people in town and asking about the cows and their herders opened up a new world. Slowly, by spending time collecting hay, helping prepare food for local festivals, and hanging out with the local teenagers, I became known as the Florentine/American photographer with the clunky analog camera. The more people I met and the more time I spent with them, the more my curiosity evolved into a profound sense of wonderment. The Ladin people are a small ethnic group in northern Italy. They have lived in harmony with their animals and the mountain environment for centuries, not as owners but as inhabitants and caretakers. Their deep-rooted traditions of interdependence and adaptability have shaped the Dolomites into one of the most breathtaking mountain ranges in the world. My photographs of the Ladin people, the animals, and the mountains reflect a sense of reverence and awe. There is no distinction in how I photograph a human, an animal, or the natural landscape: I see them as interconnected beings sharing a common identity. https://www.claudiamannphoto.com/ Text: Claudia Mann Audio: Amelia (AI) + info www.audiotecafotografica.com

Claudia Mann is a documentary photographer based in Florence. She holds a degree in Photography and Imaging from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. For her thesis, "Qui la Camorra ha perso," she documented the people living and working on assets confiscated from the Camorra in the province of Caserta. This experience and admiration for this community sparked her interest in telling other stories that celebrate the deep bond between people and their land. She is developing a project on the Ladin community of the Italian Dolomites and their synergy with the mountains. https://www.claudiamannphoto.com/ Text: Claudia Mann Voz: Amelia (AI) + info www.audiotecafotografica.com

When I started working as a still photographer on film sets, there was a lot more freedom than there is today, the set was an atmospheric place. There was something great and exciting about seeing a director on set and behind a camera. I would often have several weeks of free access to photograph everything behind the scenes. I was able to make candid photographs in a way that would be virtually impossible now with green screens, blue screens, and video assists. The first film I worked on was Alice's Restaurant. There, I met Joanna Ney at United Artists, and through her, I was asked to work on a Fred Zinnemann film, He was going to shoot Man's Fate, but the studio canceled the film at the last minute, when I was already on my way to Singapore. They offered to send me to work on a Fellini film to make up for the canceled job. I jumped at the chance. That's how I ended up working with Fellini, which was the start of over forty years of photographing movies. Fellini is one of my favorite directors. His sense of story, drama, imagination, camera, lighting, costume, and set design is unmatched. Fellini's world was extraordinary; every day something amazing would happen. Sometimes he would get very excited and yell at everyone in sight. And then he would apologize. Fellini was wonderful in front of the camera. The picture of him with the megaphone (pages 22-23) was taken as he supervised a new set being built. Even though this picture is shot from behind, it is still very much a portrait of Fellini. You don't have to be too literal when photographing people. Photography is not a factual, but a descriptive language. You must translate the scene visually and emotionally. This picture captures very much who Fellini was. He seems to be dancing gracefully, exactly like one of the characters in his films. This was just one moment, one frame, but it speaks to something larger, which is why it has become iconic. That's what you're really trying to do with a portrait, capture who the person is, get a glimpse at the essence of who they really are. Even if someone is on set or in a costume or standing on her head, you have to see beyond that to who they are. I always tell people, "You don't have to shoot so many pictures; just wait for the moment." You wait until a person is perfectly in your frame, until the gesture is right and the action happens. If I had caught Fellini at a different angle or if he'd turned slightly, the megaphone would have been lost and so would the dance. If your timing is off, you can miss the photograph. https://maryellenmark.com/ https://www.instagram.com/maryellenmarkfoundation/ Text and photograph:© Mary Ellen Mark Voice: Charlotte Brown (AI) + info www.audiotecafotografica.com

My life changed in the fall of 1963 when I started at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and discovered photography. The school was relatively new then (about five years old) and was more about art and craft. I remember the first day I went out on the streets with a camera at the Annenberg School. I walked the streets of downtown Philadelphia, in a rather boring middle-class neighborhood. There were women with children, and dogs, and people sitting on stoops-just ordinary people. It was a fall day, and the weather was beautiful. I think it was the connection with people that astounded me. I saw that my camera gave me a connection with others that I had never had before. It allowed me to enter lives, satisfying a curiosity that was always there, but that was never explored before. On that day, I realized that the world was open to me. I realized all of the possibilities that could exist for me with my camera; all of the images that I could capture, all the lives I could enter, all the people I could meet and how much I could learn from them. On that day, my life changed forever. I realized there was no turning back; I was meant to be a photographer. https://maryellenmark.com/ https://www.instagram.com/maryellenmarkfoundation/ Text:© Mary Ellen Mark Voice: Charlotte Brown (AI)

Females is the story I have been telling for about fourteen years about the women in my family, from the youngest to the oldest. A story about the poetics of the passing of time, about the succession of the seasons of life, about death and life intimately intertwined, but also about Sicily, which becomes the stage on which the deep and ancient relationships that bind these women are depicted. Sicily, with its lights alternating with shadows, the dense and vivid interiors of the houses, the lace, the wedding dresses, the flowers, the veil of nostalgia that covers everything, the small trinkets that also live for a long time, the endless summers, the blood ties. I began this story without imagining that it would become a small photographic family epic. Photographing ‘my women’ turned out to be a necessity; at a certain point in my life, I set out to capture the story of the women in my family as it unfolded before my eyes, paying attention to the different generations and the roles played by the real protagonists of my life. Over the years, I noticed that the images I accumulated became fragments that I collected with deep care and affection, fragments that had a narrative coherence and emotional intensity that shaped my own story. To do this, I opened the doors of our homes, getting to the very heart of our existence, photographing both the interiors we inhabited and the Sicilian landscapes, both of which became our backdrops. I didn't want to tell the highlights of our lives, but the everyday moments, those where nothing seems to happen, where silence, emotional suspension, revelations, epiphanies, entanglements, become moments of pure poetry. Where life is life and nothing more than that. This is implicit in the lyricism of existence, which is what my photos are about. Each woman in my family represents the essence of being a woman: the strength, the fragility, the courage, the change, the rebellion, the contradictions, the rupture, and the infinite love that women create, spread or retain. In the images of Females, bodies change over time, absences alternate with presences, embraces become eternal, gazes transcend the present and a sweet nostalgia for what is, what will be and what will never again come to life. These images will preserve it forever. This story, which has been ongoing for some 14 years, has taken on an even stronger value for me and for the family as a historical memory and as a point of continuity with the new generation of women who are growing up and who continue to write that imaginary lifeline that contains us all. https://www.ornellamazzola.com/ Text: Ornella Mazzola Voice: Charlotte Brown (AI) + info www.audiotecafotografica.com

Ornella Mazzola is a photographer based in Palermo, Sicily. She studied at the University La Sapienza of Rome Cinema-documentary, "Visual Anthropology". Degree subject is Visual Anthropology, with a thesis developed with the documentary-director Vittorio De Seta. She started to explore the world of photography, naturally, from the visual research to socio-anthropological aspect inherent in it. She carries out different kinds of projects: personal research, social photography, intimate stories. Her stories are often focused on Southern Italy and the female universe. She has participated in several solo and group exhibitions, project and publications. Among the various experiences, she is finalist of Palm* Photo Prize 2024 and winner of the judges' panel special mention. She is finalist of Portrait of humanity 2023 by British Journal of Photography, finalist of Lens Culture Portrait Awards 2019, Marco Pesaresi 2020, Documentary family Award 2021. She is among the winners of OpenWalls 2021 by The British Journal of Photography; In 2020 she is winner of the competition promoted for the anthological exhibition of the photojournalist Letizia Battaglia in Milan (Palazzo Reale). https://www.ornellamazzola.com/ Text: Ornella Mazzola Voice: Charlotte Brown (AI) + info www.audiotecafotografica.com

It is important to distinguish between series and sequence. A book that is a simple series will always be boring. The book must have an internal sequence, and the text, if there is any, must be part of that sequence. In the series, the images are related by their visual similarity. In the sequence, the relationship is not apparent, but internal, so the relationship is not apparent until you read the book. The world is full of series, and that is the legacy of Pop art (an example of this is Andy Warhol). But art, when it wants to provoke, doesn't allow repetition. Someone makes a stroke of genius and it works, but repeating that stroke of genius over and over again is boring. Making a series is easy, making a sequence is intellectually more sophisticated. The series is a vulgarisation of the exercise of the gaze. Text: José Manuel Navia Voice: Marcus O'Donnell (AI) + info www.audiotecafotografica.com

José Manuel Navia was born in Madrid in 1957. He was an editorial photographer from the age of 17 (1974) to 30 (1987). In 1979, at the age of 22, he married Carmen Martín. In 1980, at the age of 23, he graduated in Philosophy at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and became the father of his first son: Manuel Navia. In 1987, at the age of 30, he left editorial photography and became a freelance photographer, working for the Cover agency. His work as a reporter evolved into a more personal and delayed photography, always in colour and documentary style. His images are nourished by a profoundly Iberian root and explore territories and people linked in one way or another to my origins and their culture. He is obsessed with the power of meaning of photography and its relationship with literature, with words. In 1992, at 35, he began to work as a freelance photographer for the Vu agency in Paris and as a regular contributor to ‘El País Semanal’. From 1995 to 1996, from the age of 38 to 39, he worked as a graphic editor for El País Semanal. Text: José Manuel Navia Voice: Marcus O'Donnell (AI) + info www.audiotecafotografica.com

For this project, HUN (published by Dalpine, 2024), I have been photographing for 12 years. This project contains my entire career and development as a photographer. The images span digital to analogue, colour to b/w, 35mm to 120mm, still imagery to frame grabs from filming. I’ve experimented with cyanotype, with anthotype, with still lives and staged photography, with drawing on the images, with riso prints and the list goes on. Even if all these experimentations did not make it into the final book, they are all part of the project and my own artistic development. Arguably, this is not necessary information for the viewer to appreciate the project, but for me it is very special to see my own journey into photography spread across the pages. I think that’s part of the reason the project has taken so long: I needed to take my time to find my voice and confidence as an image maker. Only then was the project ready. At the same time, the project has been a deep dive into trying to understand and reflect on some complex topics and frustrations that are extremely difficult to sort out. I think of the project and the book as an extension of this process. The idea has been to pass all these questions, to which I don’t have any answers, on to the reader and have them work on them for themselves. Ultimately, it’s a work that delves into our tendency to have zero tolerance towards those who think differently than we do instead of taking time to reflect and look at ourselves as well. https://hulujay.com/ Text:Julia Mejnertsen Voice: Charlote Brown (AI) + info: www.audiotecafotografica.com

Julia’s work explores family mythologies. Through her practice, she unravels the intricate stories and narratives that shape our familial connections, revealing the profound impact they have on our identities and perceptions of self. Julia’s exploration of family mythologies is sometimes a journey that start from self-discovery and introspection, inviting viewers to reflect on their own familial experiences and the profound human connections that define us all. Through her work, she exposes the falsehoods, paradoxes, and oppressive nature of learned narratives, while employing visual storytelling to subvert and critique their enduring power. Julia’s ideas challenge conventional norms and ignite crucial conversations about race, identity, and power dynamics. With each photographic project, she invites viewers to reevaluate their understanding of history by reminding us that the way we see is a function of our individual condition. https://hulujay.com/ Text: Julia Mejnertsen Voice: Charlotte Brown (AI) + info: www.audiotecafotografica.com

The Portuguese word “Saudade” refers to that bittersweet feeling of longing, melancholy, desire, and nostalgia for a beloved yet absent person or place. I spent my adolescent years in Brazil, mostly in remote parts of Minas Gérais and Goiás. Although I moved to Rio as soon as I finished my studies in Europe, it was those formative pre-teen and teenage years, surrounded by forests, rivers and cattle ranches, that had the most profound effect on me. The moment I arrived, I felt an instant connection to the land, to the fauna and flora and to the people. Despite the fact that I lived in Brazil during the brutal military dictatorship, my memories have mostly been idealised. They are usually nurturing, comforting and inspiring, in spite of the feeling of violence that permeated much of the country at that time. Working on this project has been a cathartic process. It has helped me reconcile my loss of this beloved place as well as the sense of loss, that occurred the moment I left, of part of my identity. The project has helped me come to terms with the fact that part of my brain will forever be filled with a language I still dream in but hardly ever have the opportunity to speak. This project is a way for me to communicate my love for this country. Over the past few years, whenever a scene or moment reminded me of my life in those places in the 70s and 80s, I photographed it. Together these images, made in various other countries, have become a visual expression of my saudade of Brazil. Text: Alison McCauley Voice: Annie Smith (AI) + info: www.audiotecafotografica.com

I have an instinctive, open-ended and subjective approach to the people and locations that I photograph. I photograph freely, with an open heart and mind. Later, after I’ve had the time to reflect on the images I’ve taken, I like to weave the photographs together to create non-linear, intuitive narratives. My work often explores the idea of identity, belonging, home and memory. The images are frequently infused with melancholy and feelings of restlessness and loss. These feelings and the recurring themes come from my life and experiences. Throughout my childhood and for most of my life, I have always moved from country to country every few years. These experiences have made me question my own identity and I have developed a deep interest in the idea of belonging to a country or a community. My experiences have made me long for the feeling of home. The constant departures and the subsequent loss of people and places in my life have caused these melancholic feelings that seem unshakable. I think of my photography as being both outward looking and inward looking. It’s outward looking because I source my images from the world around me. I photograph the people, objects and locations that interest me. However my photographs are inward looking because I use photography to explore and express my feelings and emotions. I’m especially interested in presenting my visual narratives in books that I make by hand but also in traditionally published books. My favourite way of viewing photographs is in a photo book. I love the intimacy between the viewer and the photographs in the book. I love the tactile nature and the smell of books. Looking through a photo book or zine is a very personal and sensual experience. https://amccauleyphotography.com/ Text: Alison McCauley Voice: Annie Smith (AI) + info : www.audiotecafotografica.com

We live in a delicate moment in which our relationship with the environment is compromised by a series of nostalgic memories and the tragic fate of contemporary truth. My photographic research, through portraits and landscapes, aims to deepen this spatio-temporal relationship between human beings and nature, which is inseparable from the emotional awareness of the spirit. The play of chromatic values, which I achieve through analogue techniques, seeks to add purity and harmony to the composition. The pictures are shaped through careful use of light and a quiet elegance of form, which results in the subjects being suspended in a romantic dimension that lends a timelessness to this series of portraits and landscapes. At once distant and familiar, the stillness of my works seeks to remind us of who we are and who we were. To achieve this, I dwell on the psychological tension of empty spaces and alien faces, capable of uniting past and present in a dreamlike representation of a world that straddles myth and reality. Text: Maurizio Bavutti Voice: Peter Lee + info www.audiotecafotografica.com

Maurizio Bavutti is a full-time photographer based in Italy. Maurizio’s interest in photography began during his film studies in Spain. Since then he has worked with analogue photography, in color and black and white, through portraits and landscapes, developing a romantic and nostalgic vision of the contemporary world. After finishing his studies in media, which he attended between Italy, Spain and England, he moved to London in 2006 where he took a postgraduate course in photography at the University of the Arts UAL. Following five years of training as a photo assistant for several artists Maurizio begins his career. In 2013 he moved from London to New York City where he lived and worked for a few years, growing a strong interest in to “straight photography” movement , originally founded by the pioneers of the early 20th century American photography like Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand and Ansel Adams. Recently Maurizio returns to Italy to deepen his photographic studies and research on his home land. His works have been exhibited at Triennale Milano, Armani Silos Art Foundation, Paratissima Torino and ArtCity Bologna. https://www.mauriziobavutti.com/ Text: Mauricio Bavutti Voice: Peter Lee (AI) + info www.audiotecafotografica.com

It's challenging for me to talk about my pictures at the moment; I'm in the middle of a whirlwind, that's for sure; a whirlwind that I created myself. I want to focus on the kind of photo that made me be able to say; I am an artist. Honest and straightforward photography, I find myself doing exactly the same kind of photography I was doing 20 years ago: uncomplicated photos, where composition doesn't really exist, and I can disregard technical details that only hinder my process. The search for complicity, especially when shooting portraits, is the driving force behind my work. When I started to photograph "Tonatiuh" (my first project/book), I felt I had to move away from portraiture; I was very insecure about the process and about being able, after so much time, to create "the connection", that moment where you know what is going to happen; I didn't think I could handle the responsibility and the anxiety that the idea created in me. I photographed for months without looking for who to portray, focused 100% on the landscape, territory and its light, its shadow. The portraits came to me; the same curiosity that usually leads us to creation awoke in people, and magnetism that I can't decipher came into action and completely changed my work. The portrait today is the most effective communication tool I have found; all my practice is directed to find those moments and making accomplices of the people who are interested in what I do. I am currently editing my new work, and I run into a "problem": I have too many portraits at the moment to balance with details and "B sides," as I call them. My practice focuses on finding those "B-sides", that product that is not the "commercial", that is not the most "colourful", but when compared to the "singles" of music on Vinyl, many times the B-side was the best sounding; the piece that we identified with the most. In this way, I make sure to cover the whole bed of conceptual pillars that I seek to develop. Precisely, with the portrait, the search for that alien image is forgotten by everyday life and sometimes rusted, not only by time and nature but more by oblivion and change of habits. Text: Juan Brenner Voice: Marcus O'Donnell (AI) + info www.audiotecafotografica.com

Self-taught photographer, lives and works in Guatemala City. After working in New York as a fashion photographer for over a decade, Brenner returned to his native Guatemala where he began making work about the people and complex territory in the country’s Western Highlands. Juan uses photography to reflect on the fluidity and abstract nature of identity and territory, his images capture the complexities of cultural hybridization and, more poignantly, the way power, hierarchical structures and inequality are instrumentally continued through time. Brenner’s first monograph, Tonatiuh, was shortlisted for the 2019 Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation First PhotoBook Award. For the same project, he was a winner of LensCulture’s 2019 Emerging Talent Award His works have been featured in publications including Aperture, British Journal of Photography, Le Monde, VICE, C-41, Aint Bad, Fisheye, Booooooom, California Sunday Magazine, Paper Journal, Collector Daily, I-D Magazine, Dazed and Confused, Pardo, Loupe, Palm Studios, Metal Magazine, Musee, JOIA and Balam Magazine. He is a founding member of Proyectos Ultravioleta in Guatemala City. Text: Juan Brenner Voice: Marcus O'Donnell + info www.audiotecafotografica.com

Grucho is a typical gaucho. He was born and raised on the island of Las Lechiguanas, Argentina. Here, everything exists within a perfect red line where the real and the fantastic coexist. Grucho knows his land inch by inch, literally. His connection to it is deep and visceral, to the point that it is as obvious to him as it is to us to have sensation in the extremities of our bodies. He can feel what is happening on his land. He always knows where his herds of cattle are, and he can sense when an animal is sick, perhaps exhausted after being released from the dangerous waters of a swamp or bent over to drink from the river. He sometimes spends days nursing them back to health when he catches up with them. He brings back horses that roam free in vast terrains, using a whistle and some sung verses, but most of the time, the animals are too far away to be able to hear the sound. However, they always come back. Whenever I look at these pictures, I return to his world. He welcomes us into his home and daily life and accompanies us to where he spends his time, slowly introducing us to his reality. We find the gateway to this world of his through his eyes and his words, which still resonate in me as they did the first time I heard them. https://www.giacomobrunoph.com/ Text: Giacomo Bruno Voice: Ken Hunter (AI) + info: www.audiotecafotografica.com

Giacomo Bruno is an Italian photographer born in 1991 based in Reggio Emilia, Italy. He produces personal projects on life, craft and agriculture, providing insights into how rural areas develop and survive across the globe. He started as assistant photographer straight after high school, working in two advertising and product photography studios until 2013, when he decided to take his own path following his passion for traveling and his true vocation: portrait photography and reportage. He worked on numerous reportages in Latin America, China, Japan, Sri Lanka, South Africa and his projects have been published in leading international magazines, such as Corriere della Sera and Le Monde.fr, but also editorials and magazines like Perimetro, C41 Magazine, Mia Le Journal, SlackTide Mag, Zeitjung, Gräfe and Unzer, The post internazionale, Erodoto108 and others. He has collaborated with important international advertising agencies, such as McCann Worldgroup, Merchant Cantos, Brunswick Group, Esse House and K48 and important local companies such as VENTIE30 and The Block MultiVisual. Text: Giacomo Bruno Voice: Ken hunter (AI)

I have written that photography is creating a new esthetic. This is based not only on perspective and plastic form as expressed by the lens but also on the new subject matter made possible in our age by science. When the first stroboscopic photographs were exhibited, it was evident that in them was to be seen a real hyperreality, a true fantasy beyond what the subconscious could concoct. Some of Atget's photographs of reflections in Paris shop windows had had an intuitive premonition of the bizarre juxtapositions of objects from nature, which surrealism likes to flaunt, but with this difference—Atget's incongruities were seen and understood from life, not fabricated. They had the spontaneous absurdity or even madness of nature's chaos; they were not melancholy arrangements of the paranoiac vision. A step beyond this visual comment is the comment made by science when it sees the unseen, by means of all the most intricate and modern devices—the stroboscope and electronic radiography. Here, at last photography sees with its own eye, untouched by any memories of how painters saw in the past. For it is true, that in photographing subjects from life—people, buildings, landscape—we cannot help but be slightly influenced by the remembrance of how these subjects have been painted through the ages. The portraits of Hill and Mrs. Cameron are examples of how tradition imposed itself on the new art. The final liberation of photography from the past may come through the new subject matter of science, where there is no precedent for what is seen and photographed. No man before photography could know what an invisible particle of silver halide looked like. Enlarged 40,000 times, it is still less than two inches long. In these basic forms of materials may be found the new esthetic of photography. I do not mean to suggest that photography will abandon its old subjects. By no means. Through centuries, pictures have used the same materials, because they are essential themes of human experience. I think of the new uses and the new themes—the unseen substances of life—as being a widening of the scope of photography, which will react to widen the imaginative approach of photographers to more usual subjects. For what our age needs is a broad, human art, as wide as the world of human knowledge and action; photography cannot explore too far or probe too deeply to meet this need. Text: Berenice Abbott Voice: Annie Smith (AI) + info www.audiotecafotografica.com

Berenice Abbott was a central figure in and important bridge between the photographic circles and cultural hubs of Paris and New York. She was born in Springfield, Ohio, and in 1918 moved to New York, where she studied sculpture independently, meeting and making vital connections with Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, leaders of the American avant-garde. In 1921, Abbott moved to Paris and continued her study of sculpture there and, later, in Berlin, before returning to Paris and becoming an assistant at the Man Ray Studio, where she would master photography. Her first solo show was at the gallery Le Sacre du Printemps in Paris in 1926 and featured portraits of the Parisian avant-garde, a practice she continued throughout her years in Paris, as in James Joyce. It was in 1925 at the Man Ray Studio that Abbott first saw photographs by Eugène Atget. After Atget’s death, in 1927, she collaborated with Julien Levy, of New York’s Julien Levy Gallery, to buy most of Atget’s negatives and prints, bringing them back to New York upon her return in 1929. Abbott’s initiative preserved the archive of this fin-de-siècle French photographer’s studio, which, given its influence on the avant-garde, has become an important chapter of Abbott’s legacy. Arriving back in New York in 1929, Abbott was struck by the rapid transformation of the built landscape. “Old New York is fast disappearing,” Abbott observed. “At almost any point on Manhattan Island, the sweep of one's vision can take in the dramatic contrasts of the old and the new and the bold foreshadowing of the future. This dynamic quality should be caught and recorded immediately in a documentary interpretation of New York City. The city is in the making and unless this transition is crystalized now in permanent form, it will be forever lost.... The camera alone can catch the swift surfaces of the cities today and speaks a language intelligible to all.”1 On the eve of the Great Depression she began a series of documentary photographs of the city that, with the support of the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project from 1935 to 1939, debuted in 1939 as the traveling exhibition and publication Changing New York, (see Daily News Building, 220 East 42nd Street, Manhattan, Fifth Avenue, Nos. 4, 6, 8, Manhattan, and Cedar Street from William Street, Manhattan. For the rest of her life Abbott advocated for a documentary style of photography as exemplified in this project, while also continuing to promote the work of Atget. Her work was included in many influential exhibitions of the era, including the Salon de l’escalier, 1928; Fotografie der Gegenwart, 1929; Film und Foto, 1929; and Photography: 1839–1937, 1938; as well as in a solo-exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in 1932. In 1970, The Museum of Modern Art hosted a career retrospective. Text: Berenice Abbott, from her book 'A Guide to Better Photography' Voice: Annie Smith (AI) + info: www.audiotecafotografica.com

SECRET CITY (1981-1985) I was so carried away by photography that in 1983, I quit my job, left my wife, and struck out on my own... a free entity. I worked under contract for various Soviet publishing houses (wherever I could really) so that I would not starve and could pay to support my sons. The only thing I didn´t change was my camera; I still had the ‘Iskra’. I knew that you couldn’t earn a living doing black-and-white photography. I had to get into ‘colour’. I shot on the only colour film available in Soviet stores, ‘Orwachrome 32’. It seemed to me then that this was a terrible film, I even had to develop it myself. The process was tedious – it involved intermediate drying and required constant temperature to half a degree. The grain was ham-fisted, the colours only indicative… Now that time has passed, though, I look at it with different eyes. I can see that the colour rendition recalls that of the early twentieth century ‘Autochrome’, and it looks great now, especially when compared to the ‘soapy’ films of today. My dream was to shoot on Kodachrome, but they didn’t sell it in the shops, and I looked at the beautiful boxes of film used by journalists I knew with envy. Nevertheless, when I saw the results of their work, I was sad that I would never be able to use this film myself. And so, it was back to Orwachrome 32 and black-and-white photography. At the same time I continued to experiment with colour film, the use of colour negatives, cross-processes: under-development, over-development and other tricks of analogue photography. Then, finally, I had some luck – I started working in publishing houses where they handed out colour Kodak Ektachrome film for shoots. I used to use half of any roll for personal purposes. I also processed the Ektachrome myself because I’d already gained the necessary experience for creative developing. These pictures also piled up, and at the same time I got a thrill out of the results. (...) http://www.b-savelev.com/ Text: Boris Savelev Voice: Ken Hunter (AI) + info: www.audiotecafotografica.com

What are these photographs about? Why were they taken? Who are they for? I started “taking” photographs as a schoolboy in 1963 and ended my youthful experiments in 1966, when I entered the Aeronautic Institute, never thinking I would return to this way of seeing the world. The next bit seems like a cliché! When my son Vadim was born, I tried taking some photos with the old Voigtländer 6x9cm, which had a hole in the mechanism that I covered up with some black paper tape. I developed the film, and oddly enough, everything worked out well. From that moment on I developed a serious addiction to photography - I simply become obsessed with the way the world looked through a lens and flattened as a photographic print. All around me there suddenly seemed to be photoclubs and camera shops which carried the bigger, flashier “Salyut” camera. I walked past these shops and looked at the cameras drooling with envy... And so, I joined the “Novator photo club” and met serious guys with their Hasselblads and Nikons, but my heart was set on the brilliance of the “Salyut”. My mind did not rest. Years later I can understand that the Salyut was not suited to my photographic style (my interest has always been in the moment rather than in staged studio portraits) but the dream that one day I would shoot with this miracle object totally absorbed my imagination. I finally bought a “Salyut” and two lenses, one wide-angle and one for portraits, at a consignment shop on Sadovaya (a big street in Moscow). There was no money left over to buy other cameras and I started actively photographing on the streets of Moscow and other cities with this wide-angle camera. I also shot sports events, developing the skill to photograph in difficult conditions with an unsuitable camera. Somewhat unexpectedly, the photographs worked, their quality improved, and I started bringing the pictures to the editorial offices of Moscow newspapers and taking part in photography competitions. The papers began printing my photographs, even awarding me a few prizes - that´s how I justified spending money on film and photo paper. There was a camaraderie at the newspaper offices where strong drinks played a part. They gave me the right little bits of paper with the correct stamps stating I was a freelance photojournalist for “Gudok” and “Komsomolskaia Pravda”. At that time, those bits of paper opened all the doors, and I could shoot anywhere without problems, during the Soviet years officials really didn´t like photography. They didn´t trust it... or photographers. In response I decided I would shoot a series of portraits of normal people in provincial towns; not for the papers or for publication, but simply for myself. I confess that I did think about an exhibition at the “Novator photo club”, of which I was still an active member. I shot this series between 1974 and 1980. I took many photographs, actively printing, looking, thinking, drinking, reprinting, talking. My goal was to make an exhibition, to share the things I saw. The exhibition never happened. I have exhibited some of the images in Bochum, Chicago, Madrid, London and elsewhere. From 1980 on I started using different cameras, taking different types of images, and I forgot about this series for 40 years. Now, these images have been polished by history, they have new meanings, and they look different since the fall of the Soviets. They show a different world, a world that has long gone and been replaced with a global digital connectivity. But it seems to me that they haven´t lost anything photographically. Perhaps, with the experience I now have in developing and printing, they have even acquired new visual possibilities, new potential. Hopefully, they will talk directly to a new audience. Text: Boris Savelev Voice: Peter Lee + info www.audiotecafotografica.com

Photography is a real obsession; I feed it with my experiences, encounters, readings, etc. I build myself up thanks to it and what it makes me discover. It has a lot to do with my practice and who I am as a person. My method is that of a documentary photographer, for whom research and reality are essential. On the other hand, I have total freedom in terms of the length of the shot, the interpretation of what I see and the selection of my photos. In the end, what counts is the idea and its representation. The importance of the document is essential and decisive in each of my projects: from this documentary, rigour is born, or not, poetry. A phrase by Jean Cocteau always echoes in my mind: "Art is a marriage between the conscious and the unconscious. https://yannickcormier.com/ Text: Yannick Cormier Voice: Peter Lee (AI) + info: www. audiotecafotográfica.com

Yannick Cormier was born in 1975 in France. In 1999 he joined the studio Astre in Paris. During this period he worked as an assistant for Patrick Swirc, William Klein and many others for magazines such as Vogue, Flair, Elle, Vanity Fair. Then he began a career as a documentary photographer and his images have been published in various international magazines (OjodePez, Courrier international, Libération, The sunday guardian, Le Nouvel Observateur, The Hindu, CNN , etc...). In spring 2018, he moved to France, after 15 years spent in India. In 2021, he published the books Tierra Magica with Éditions Light Motiv and Dravidian Catharsis with Éditions Le Mulet. The photographer reveals this form of resistance of cultural identity by traditional societies or smaller communities who have not as yet been completely anaesthetised by the modern consumerist world. It is an attempt to glimpse at the mythical attitudes of these groups. But more than myths, these images show people playing with symbols of a culture that is at ease with its traditions and hence can be self-mocking. His photography evokes the spiritual and the material, fiction and reality, tradition and modernity. His photographs are living images that he discovers in travel, in social rituals, in religious ceremonies, in cultural fantasies, in personal dreams and more generally in all the games, sacred or ordinary, that distorts identity and appearance. https://yannickcormier.com/ Text: Yannick Cormier Voice: Peter Lee (AI)

Before I go out my daughters brush my hair. I am sitting down. They adjust it with their little hands. I feel their touch. The smell of their breath. My daughters say goodbye to me. They know I'm leaving. You mustn't show us sadness. Do it gently. Build a place in time where we can always return. The three of us. My legs are heavy. But no, it doesn't happen like this. I would have liked to. I don't have that courage. I put them to bed. I spend sleepless nights with them. I leave in the morning for the bus station. Without a real goodbye. I'm on the run. I take the bus for the long trip to France. A bus from another era with dirty windows. Damaged seats. It's November outside. My compatriots all have their papers. I am the only one attempting this journey. I count on desperate luck. They don't know that before I reach the first border, the driver will stop to hide me. He will take the money I have in my fist. They should not know. They will point the finger at me. Treachery again. They are cheerful. Their suitcases are full of local food. Cigarettes, hard liquor. Like a piece of home that goes with them. Where they don't live. Where they work. I want to tell them to shut up. I place my burning cheek against the cold, fogged window. I feel my insides tighten. I hold the cloth handkerchief to my nose. The smell of the cloth brings me back to the bedroom. I'm gone. I am angry. Angry at me. At the country that betrayed us. And I am afraid. I am afraid of my daughters waking up. Of our pain. We are leaving. We know that parts of our lives will be lost forever. But before we experience this heartbreak, we cannot know how deep the chasms in our souls can be. I closed all the entrances to mine, one by one. And I was left alone. This series of photographs began with a single image. I called it La Douce. La Douce created the link between the pictures of twenty years ago and those of today. Pictures to soften the emptiness. Fill it. Give it a name. Give it colour again. And the smell. The faces of those I love. The faces of those I loved. Who are no longer. Or have gone elsewhere. In France, here I walk. With my dog Zika. In any case, I no longer know when I speak French or Serbian. I don't know if I know you from here or from there. I call you. The place is memory and today. Then maybe it can exist. I left, but I didn't forget anything. I can face myself. In front of my choices. In front of the world. So that the emptiness stops vibrating. The earth no longer slips beneath my feet. My dog bites this earth. Places a lump in the palm of my hand. The warm earth in my hand. No more fear. I can finally light a fire. https://www.sladjanastankovic.com/ Text: Sladjana Stankovic Audio: Charlotte Brown (AI) + info: www.audiotecafotografica.com

I was born in the former Yugoslavia, but I have been living and working in France since 2002. I come from a proletarian family from a country that no longer exists, which is perhaps why I return regularly, in search of that human reality that allows me to connect with my roots, with the sole purpose of confirming that it did exist. Among the workers and miners, I have rediscovered the values on which life was built in the past. Life before everything collapsed. My gaze always remains attentive to marginal worlds: I spent some time in an orphanage in Bulgaria, lost at the foot of the mountains, and for the last ten years or so, I have been following the gypsies in the shanty towns around Belgrade. The Habités series is built up over time, image by image, between my memories, my encounters and my emotions with these people. My search focuses on the treasures buried in the hearts of men. My approach is less a journey into the unknown than the need to deepen a relationship forged since childhood. My latest series, La Douce, is a collection of pictures taken between 2004 and 2021 in France and Serbia, fragments of an autobiography halfway between fiction and reality that portray not only the collapse of my country, the former Yugoslavia, but how everything that happened changed my life. I lived through this period in Serbia from beginning to end. In 2002, I came to France. I was animated by the energy of a new beginning: I lived a new stage, I learned the language, I looked for my place in a foreign country, I separated from my children, but I moved on. In this way I have forged a second life. I photograph this journey back and forth between France and Serbia as a bridge between the past and the present. La Douce is the woman who makes the journey to find what has been lost. But let nothing affect it. https://www.sladjanastankovic.com/ Text: Sladjana Stankovic Audio: Charlotte Brown (AI) + info: www.audiotecafotografica.com

There is no denying it. I am an incurable romantic. I am convinced that emotion is a central element of the photograph. Paradoxical as it is, emotion itself is not a visible property of the image. It is something that the viewer attaches or projects to it. Photographer can never transfer her or his inner feelings to the viewer. The viewer is an independent human being. Formal esthetic and technical qualities are important too. Nonetheless, for me they are secondary. I believe that composition, lighting, tonal range and other technical aspects are irrelevant if the picture lacks emotional impact, a momentum. Without emotional investment formally excellent picture can feel ultimately meaningless. https://www.jannehernes.com/ Text: Janne Hernes Voice: Marcus O'Donell (AI) + info www.audiotecafotografica.com

There is no denying it. I am an incurable romantic. I am convinced that emotion is a central element of the photograph. Paradoxical as it is, emotion itself is not a visible property of the image. It is something that the viewer attaches or projects to it. Photographer can never transfer her or his inner feelings to the viewer. The viewer is an independent human being. Formal esthetic and technical qualities are important too. Nonetheless, for me they are secondary. I believe that composition, lighting, tonal range and other technical aspects are irrelevant if the picture lacks emotional impact, a momentum. Without emotional investment formally excellent picture can feel ultimately meaningless. https://www.jannehernes.com/ Text: Janne Hernes Voice: Marcus O'Donell (AI) + info www.audiotecafotografica.com

With Spina Americana (American Spine in Latin), I am attempting to determine what the people, and their land, of the Central U.S. have to do with contributing towards what I consider to be the “national character” of this country. In this current political climate, where seclusion and division have gained the upper hand in the national psyche, it is my aim to find the unifying elements not only as Americans, but as a people. As a humanist, I still find photography to be the most efficient “visual mediator” between groups of people who will never speak to one another, either through distance or through lack of desire. I want to see if this region could hold the key to other Americans having a better understanding of who we are as a country, where we came from, and what remains of the collective hope we still have as a nation. This, I feel, can only be accomplished using a spectrum of long-term documentation, highlighting the overall complexity of what is generally assumed about this area. Thus, I have carved out a 100 mile wide path of land, splitting the geographic center of the U.S. It runs vertically all the way from the Mexican to the Canadian border, respectively, traversing and creating a backbone over the land. This corridor spans a total of around 157,000 square miles. The commonly used expression for this area is “flyover country”, which I find highly demeaning to the millions of people living there, and presumes a land of unimportance- culturally or otherwise. There is a vast spectrum of individuals and cultures that live within this “spine”, including Native Americans, Mennonites, Mexican Americans and many others. In showing aspects of daily life, I plan on equalizing the positions of mechanics, surgeons, police officers, prisoners, exotic dancers, politicians, migrant laborers, and others, as all contributing factors to what defines this part of the country. I do this simply as an American who is witnessing a level of division not seen here since the late 1850’s, and as one who believes that through the power of observation, divisions can be seen for what they truly are- transitory and obstructive. I am not alone in this national anxiety. I want this work to be able to contribute to the larger discussion of what makes us Americans in the first place and that being a patriot means the ability for us as a people to still immerse ourselves in groups that may seem foreign or hostile to us at first glance. I consider it a patriotic duty to bring up sensitive topics of discussion in order for us to observe, talk about, and ultimately repair the trenches we have so willingly dug amongst one another. As a former proponent of “conflict imagery” as a means of ending conflict, I have grown to understand that this formula no longer works as the best strategy towards preventing conflict. It is my belief that we desperately need to get back down to the personal level, to find the emotional ties that bind us all- the ones that transcend all matters of race, language, nationality, socio-economics, and power. We are a social species, meaning we need that sense of community. Where technology and social media made promises of a more inter-connected world, we instead have seen rates of personal isolation, loneliness, tribalism, suicide, and murder go up in the last twenty years. Richard Sharum Kickstarter campaign for his new book https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gblimitededitions/spina-americana-a-photo-book-by-richard-sharum?lang=es Text: ©Richard Sharum Voice: Ken Hunter (AI) + info: www.audiotecafotografica.com