One afternoon Settimio Benedusi messaged me: “I like your works, I would like you to make some posters for me. Pretend I’m your electrician.” OK, that’s absolutely great, count me in!
Settimio Benedusi is a photographer – a portraitist, to be precise – who lives and works in Imperia.
Nowadays, being a portraitist is a difficult choice – driven by passion for the profession rather than hunger for “likes”. This is a very similar approach to the one I have for typography: we both build images and worlds, taking all the time necessary to embrace the creative process that follows.
We talk about the project, ideas are born, the pen moves on the paper, sketches, colours: two volcanoes.
A natural creative exchange that comes to life when two people traveling along parallel paths, well, cross paths.
The project we work on together is the poster for RICORDI STAMPATI, a project that Settimio had already been thinking about for a while: finally reconnecting people and images. To do this, he brought together the best Italian portrait photographers, giving life to the Ricordi Stampati, Fotografia Popolare project, composed of Oliviero Toscani, Massimo Sestini, Marco Onofri, Guido Stazzoni, Toni Thorimbert.
The goal is to return to the origins of photography, when everyone had their portrait taken by the photographer: slam the doors open of the photography studio, and invite the public to
It seems trivial, but think about it: how many photos do you have on your smartphone? And how many have you printed? Technology helps us make everything perfect. Smartphones today take beautiful photos. But you know what? I think it’s almost a liquid, indefinite and volatile memory.
È lì, ma non si sa come o per quanto.
It’s there, but we don’t know how or for how long. Is not enough. Because you need a professional, with a precise authorial gaze, to create a photograph that is not simply beautiful, but that has a meaning, a plan, a story. During RICORDI more than 450 people had their photographs taken.
Photography, like artisanal typography, is a trace left on a path, testimony to a moment, an instant, a hand that stops time. And when you can hold a photo in your hands, instead of looking at it through the screen of a smartphone, well, that’s magic.
When I saw a photo of the poster hanging on the street I said: “Sun, wind and rain. Now they are truly popular posters, perfectly in line with the project.”
I was shocked, I confess. I have never seen my works hung on the street (although – historically – that has always been their place). Remove the frame, take it off to the wall. Go with the pins stuck in the wood of the door. Time did the rest.
È lì, ma non si sa come o per quanto.
It’s there, but we don’t know how or for how long. Is not enough. Because you need a professional, with a precise authorial gaze, to create a photograph that is not simply beautiful, but that has a meaning, a plan, a story. During RICORDI more than 450 people had their photographs taken.
Photography, like artisanal typography, is a trace left on a path, testimony to a moment, an instant, a hand that stops time. And when you can hold a photo in your hands, instead of looking at it through the screen of a smartphone, well, that’s magic.
It’s really true, photography is powerful and the Ricordi Stampati project enters the emotional life of people and families.
The goal is to return to the origins of photography, when everyone had their portrait taken by the photographer: slam the doors open of the photography studio, and invite the public to
