Lorenzo’s photography goes straight to the heart. Shots that depict the purity of shapes and enchant the viewers as visual poems.
Tell us how you started. When was your first encounter with photography?
I am the son of artists, my father was a wedding photographer. So at home, I had access to a lot of equipment. But it was only towards the end of my studies, about ten years ago, that I really started to experiment with film. I am self-taught, basically. I started to explore various genres and I learnt the basis of photography along with developing the films. I studied the great masters, trying to understand their techniques and their point of view, to then find my own way.
And what did you find along your way?
There is a very essential kind of photography, minimalist, which many have described as “silent” and poetic. It is essential, starting with the subjects: every shot contains very few elements, which I then try to highlight in the best way.
And along my way, there are mostly landscapes. Most of them are natural, but also industrial and urban. They all share the extreme cleanliness and essentiality of the shapes.
I rarely use colours, in order not to distract the focus from the shape, and when I do use it I concentrate on the colour itself, and on the chromatic contrasts of the scene. To the point that sometimes the photograph is no longer recognizable and it almost looks like an abstract work.
Your photos are very poetic, as we said, and often your titles contribute to this. How do you choose them?
It is true, also titles have a role in my photography. Sometimes they are quite descriptive, more often they offer a key for the interpretation of the image. Sometimes I give to my shots the title of a song, or a piece of one, other times the shot inspires my words. Anyhow, it is something very instinctive, not premeditated.
In this regard, how much instinct is there in your photography? How important is the post-production for example?
Imagining a continuum that goes from the snap-shot to a post-productive work that completely modifies the original, I guess I could be placed in the middle. Post-production is surely fundamental for the minimalism I was talking about. Everything depends on the conditions of the shot. If the scene is already clean and essential at the origin, then the finishing touch is basically the conversion to black and white. Other times one must work with one’s imagination and intervene in a more decisive way to obtain an expressive image.
What are you currently working on?
I am focusing on a quite complex project about trees and climate change. I am not shooting much, because I am studying environments, microclimates, and species. I am not sure how long this will take but I have faith that something very interesting will come from it.
