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Umberto Romagnoli
Umberto Romagnoli
Umberto Romagnoli

Umberto Romagnoli

Country: Italy
Birth: 1970

Umberto Romagnoli was born in Rome in 1970; in 1994 he attended the European Institute of Design, where he followed photography courses for two years. In 1996 he received a special mention from the jury of the Europe: Crossing Borders competition organized by the European Cultural Foundation in Amsterdam for a work inspired by 100 years of Cinema. Since 2002 he has worked as a photographer, assistant and printer in the studio of Claudio Abate, the "art photographer", eyewitness of the artistic ferment and avant-garde from the 1960s onwards, where he deals with the organization and management of the archive photography and studio. Always interested in the cinematographic medium, often a source of inspiration for his work, in 2008 he made the short film War Box and in 2010 Spiriti del Lago. In the following years he founded the Mister Freedom-Brigata Cinematica, an association that supports and promotes visual culture and cinematographic in all its forms. Parallel to his photographic activity, he organizes and takes care of film clubs, film festivals and themed events such as: Posto Unico, Pape Satàn, Sdrive-In, Arena-Dentro La Storia and Street Cinema.

Statement:
I think that through a broad vision of photography I try to explore both the intimate and the analytical, creating a dialogue between the human essence and the visual representation, with this approach I try to combine originality and critical reflection. As for the interior and ancestral universe, I have always focused on subjects that reflect intimacy and human nature, from female nudes, to the elements to portraits used in a symbolic or metaphorical way, to still lifes of various inanimate objects that can hide deeper meanings. As for the analysis of the image and the fictional universe, I have worked on the understanding and analysis of the photographic and cinematographic image, examining how the visual image communicates, influencing the viewer, its authenticity and truth, asking myself questions about the nature of the image: how authentic is it? how manipulated is it? This can lead to reflections on perception and reality, passing through works of pure fiction, creating images that tell imaginary stories.
 

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More Great Photographers To Discover

Michael Jackson
United Kingdom
1966
British b.1966, in Wokingham, Berkshire. Jackson trained as a painter at West Dean College, England. After moving to Wales In 2007 he started work on an extensive study of a single remote beach, Poppit Sands, which lasted for eight years until 2015. Jackson won the Chris Beetles Award in 2013 and became a Hasselblad Masters Award finalist three times in 2008, 2009 and 2012. Now regarded as a leading exponent of the luminogram process, he works with uniquely developed techniques and response mirroring using silver gelatin paper in the darkroom. In 2017 his luminogram work was paired with theologian Edwin A.Abbott in a book published by 21st Editions, titled after Abbott's famous work 'FLATLAND' and premiered at the Grand Palais in Paris. His work is held at the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the collection of the University of Minnesota. Artist Statement "I am a British photographer based in rural Wales, UK. Born 1966. Studied art at West Dean College then apprenticed under the landscape painter Christopher W. Baker. Since moving to Wales in 2007 I have been photographing a single beach - Poppit Sands. This seems to be something that I am compelled to do as I have not yet tired of it. My goal is to keep on looking harder and hope that through studying a single subject I can find something new. The images have toured with the Hasselblad Masters On Tour twice and have been exhibited in Copenhagen, Hong Kong, Beijing, Berlin, New York, Cardiff, London & Los Angeles as well being featured in magazines such as LENSWORK, SILVERSHOTZ and SHOTS as well as blogs such as LENSCRATCH, CNN & FEATURESHOOT. The images have also reached the Hasselblad Masters Finals three times."Source: www.mgjackson.co.uk
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Her choice to display children playing in the street and explore street photography fights against what was going on at the time. Legislation being passed in New York at the time was limiting many of the working classes' access to these public spaces. Laws were passed that directly targeted these communities in an attempt to control them. New bans on noise targeted working-class and minority communities. There was a movement to also try to keep children from playing on the street believing it is unsafe for them out there. Instead encouraging safe new areas that were usually built more in upper and middle-class areas. Helen Levitt instead exploring the narrative of those who lived in these areas and played in these streets was a way further to empower the subjects of her photos. Levitt was born in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of May (Kane), and Sam Levitt. Her father and maternal grandparents were Russian Jewish immigrants. She went to New Utrecht High School but dropped out in 1931. She began taking photography when she was eighteen and in 1931 she learned how to develop photos in the darkroom when she began working for J. Florian Mitchell, a commercial portrait photographer in the Bronx. She also attended many classes and events hosted by Manhattan Film and Photography League. This was also around the time she was exposed to the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson at the Julien Levy Gallery, who she was also able to meet through the league. His work became a major influence for her photography as it inspired her to change from her current more journalistic and commercial approach to photography to a more personal one. In 1936, she purchased a Leica camera (a 35 mm range-finder camera). In While teaching art classes to children in 1937 for the New York City's Federal Art Project, Levitt became intrigued with the transitory chalk drawings that were part of the New York children's street culture of the time. She began to photograph these chalk drawings, as well as the children who made them for her own creative assignment with the Federal Art Project. were ultimately published in 1987 as In The Street: chalk drawings and messages, New York City 1938–1948. She continued taking more street photographs mainly in East Harlem but also in the Garment District and on the Lower East Side, all in Manhattan. During the 1930s to 1940s, the lack of air conditioning meant people were outside more, which invested her in street photography. Her work was first published in Fortune magazine's July 1939 issue. The new photography section of the Museum of Modern Art, New York included Levitt's work in its inaugural exhibition in July 1939. In 1941, she visted Mexico City with author James Agee and took photos of the area. In 1943, Nancy Newhall curated her first solo exhibition Helen Levitt: Photographs of Children. In 1959 and 1960, she received two grants from the Guggenheim Foundation for her pioneering work in color photography. In 1965 she published her first major collection, A Way of Seeing. Much of her work in color from 1959 to 1960 was stolen in a 1970 burglary of her East 12th Street apartment. The remaining photos, and others taken in the following years, can be seen in the 2005 book Slide Show: The Color Photographs of Helen Levitt. A second solo exhibit, Projects: Helen Levitt in Color, was held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1974. Her next major shows were in the 1960s; Amanda Hopkinson suggests that this second wave of recognition was related to the feminist rediscovery of women's creative achievements. In 1976, she was a Photography Fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts. Levitt lived in New York City and remained active as a photographer for nearly 70 years. However, she expressed lament at the change of New York City scenery: "I go where there's a lot of activity. Children used to be outside. Now the streets are empty. People are indoors looking at television or something." She had to give up making her own prints in the 1990s due to sciatica, which also made standing and carrying her Leica difficult, causing her to switch to a small, automatic Contax. She was born with Ménière's syndrome, an inner-ear disorder that caused her to "[feel] wobbly all [her] life." She also had a near-fatal case of pneumonia in the 1950s. Levitt lived a personal and quiet life. She seldom gave interviews and was generally very introverted. She never married, living alone with her yellow tabby Blinky. Levitt died in her sleep on March 29, 2009, at the age of 95.Source: Wikipedia
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