The Art of Reportage

The sweet and strong touch of Leibovitz's finger is something hard to dislike.
The truth in her works is simply -wow- and beyond all the idealism and theoreticism of the critics, I believe Annie's photos hit the viewer directly in his deepest feelings.
If we consider her opera omnia we can feel the presence of Annie not just as a photographer, a detached and scientific eye, but we can feel she's living the moment.  She's part of the photo even if we can't see her, and this feeling is what keeps us focused on her work and make us feel part of that.
In her work we can see how influencing has been her college of art, in fact pictorialism is the essence of her whole work: the magnificence in the representation of her subject makes it iconic, no matter if the viewer knows it or not.

Her first period has been marked from the the huge character of Jann Wenner, co-founder and publisher of Rolling Stone. This part of her career is made of vitalism and presence. She's following on tour and the best musicians of the time and in her photos we can visualize her as part of the big party. She's friend with her subjects and her reportage becomes more intimate and special.
The turning point of her career is the photo that changed her life is when in 1980 she took the portrait of Lennon and Ono, with John nude and curled around Yoko fully dressed; few hours after this photo Lennon was shot dead. This incredible picture becomes more iconic than all other Annie's photos. The fetal position of Lennon seems to mark, unintentionally, the bitter nearness between life and death.
After this period Annie starts working also for the biggest fashion magazine in the US and in Europe and her style becomes even more pictorialist; the scene is no more free and true, it's a set that Leibovitz - with her stunning skills - gives life to.
Her punchy but gentle point of view is what made her one of the best photographers still alive, and this made her work more than reportage, it becomes art. 
She puts her soul in her work: as she told the Times "this is one life, and the personal pictures and the assignment work are all part of it". That's why we feel intimate her pictures, a rare beauty of our time.

Annie Leibovitz (2004). A Photographer's Life: 1990-2005.

Annie Leibovitz (1983). Annie Leibovitz: Photographs.

Gail Buckland (2009). Who Shot Rock and Roll: A Photographic History, 1955-Present.

Rachel Somerstein. (2008). Life Through A Lens. Available: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/annie-leibovitz/life-through-a-lens/16/

The Americans' Blues

Robert Frank's work is the best visual expression of the cultural movement known as the beat generation. He's beat generation's natural eye.

He moved from Zurich to USA in a florid moment for a persona like him. His pure spirit found the right place in the subculture of the time in America, and he embraced this visual, helped from his lack of education: an unfiltered view – you got eyes Kerouac said to him -

The climax of his work is The Americans, a book that I suggest everyone to look at. It's more than just a book of photos, it's a book of a country, of a time, it's a book that really picks the zeitgeist of the real America up; not the glossy one, not the always happy one, not the dream one: the Life. The Americans is the elegy of the post-war American's life in its essence, its purity, its harshness.

Frank's photography is spontaneous, it is vitalism and gloom.

Even if Kerouac wrote the introduction of the Americans, I think Frank's fellow spirit actually is Ginsberg. Energy, frankness and gloom are their sign.

Frank is all the larger that life Kerouac's vitalism, he's all Ginsberg's melancholy, he's all Ray Charles's energy; he's the voice of a generation sick and tired of fake smiles and lies, a generation hungry of truth, a romantic and auto-destructive society.

Look at his work listening to some blues and reading to some Ginsberg's poetry, that's the way to do it!

Hit the road Frank.

Reading:

Robert Frank (1959). The Americans. New York: grove Press

http://www.wussu.com/poems/agh.htm

http://www.amazon.com/Road-Jack-Kerouac/dp/0140042598

Who's This?

Who's him?

I see with eyes,

I feel with his soul,

I smile with his mouth,

but who am I?

I know the first thing to do when you enter a community is to introduce yourself, that's fine, but I feel this harder than I thought.

Sometimes I think I know who I am, but quite often I'm asking to my self which part of my character is just representation and which is the essence of myself. Am I what I do?

This could sound much je suis un autre, but that's just how i feel sometimes.

Maybe sometimes I think too much, but it's not always like that.

Despite this I'm a photographer - and I love it - I'm from Italy but I moved this year to London to get my degree in Photography with Contemporary Art.

London is great so I have a lot of sources of inspirations, and if I'll be good enough I'll catch the right train!

After this boring presentation, what you should expect to find here hope is not that boring! It'll be a melting pot of what I like, what I find around me, what I'm interested in, and myself.

At the end this a web-log, so maybe this will help me and you to find out who am I.

Hope we'll have fun!

Take it easy