If you choose the Street as your photo shoot, telling a story is not easy.
Hundreds of stories continuously follow each other on every corner, in every alley, around the world, and all at the same time.
That is what the Street is.
A melting pot, a marvelous stage on which unintentional actors relentlessly play their own roles and reveal themselves . In every shot you can catch a glimpse of the patterns, the relationships between the container, ie the Street, and the content, which is life, in all the countries I have visited.
Like a riverbed, the Street is home to the restless flow of life, but not in a passive way. On the contrary, in a symbiotic relationship, the content and the container complement and give meaning to each other. The actors of the stories, unaware of this relationship, transform themselves, fit and blend into the scenes, now for a light reflecting from a building, then for a large vehicle in no parking area, or for some soap bubbles bursting on a tourist.
Tales, stories, recurring unlikely plots, and each of these is welcomed, supported or contrasted by the Street and by other stories. Rome, Istanbul, New York, Paris, Tangier, Marrakesh, Santiago de Compostela … lovers, dancers, tourists, worshipers, beggars, or simple people walking by.
All iconic elements of this time, of this or that city. Dipped in the dark or pervaded by the light, in color or black and white; each one is a story within a story, it is a path through the complex maze of streets in the world.
The Street has always the leading role, it is always the container that shapes its content, whether you are at the Easter Parade in New York or in the Medina of Marrakesh during the period of Ramadan. The Street and the life, in their innumerable, constantly changing nuances, show themselves to the photographer’s eyes, whose job is not just to fix moments, but to interpret and transfer his/her emotions in the shot.
In order to be able to seize, report all these degrees of shades you need to behave like a modern Flâneur and to be, in Baudelaire’s words, a botanist of the footway, an analytical connoisseur of the urban texture, who is open to a dawdling, schedules-free exploration. Or, as Walter Benjamin argues, you should be able to be an easy middle-class, detatched, yet very discerning person.
And it is just by this attitude that we become permeable to the stories of the Street, through which, therefore, me manage to grasp the deeper meaning of it. Only by letting the Street carry us, without resistance or opposing prejudice, we can become part of it and of its stories, just like carefree strollers among the others’ lives .
I do not believe that much in the stylistic exercises of composition, nor in the dogmas of the depth of field.
In every picture I think it is important to make what strikes us most explicit, allowing our instinct to spot that decisive moment in which everything is suspended between action and reaction, in which, quoting H.C. Bresson, “… there is a moment in which the moving elements are in balance.
Photography must seize this moment and keep this balance firm . ”
The scene, the light, may also be the same, but it is the Street and the city as a whole, to make a special and unique moment of all that .
About Marco Salvadori
professional photographer, performs its activity as a photographer and teacher mainly in Rome. Associated with “Officine Fotografiche Roma” for over 12 years has added to the photography classes also university studies. As a documentary photographer has realized some special services social and anthropological interest – Palermo (2009), Santiago de Compostela (2010) – Lampedusa (2012). Photography teacher since 2012 at various Roman structures
Co-founder in 2015 Taophoto – www.taophoto.it – company that offers courses, travel and photography workshops. [Official Website]
