Antonio Biagiotti

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Biography

Antonio Biagiotti was born on December 21 st, 1971 in Porretta Terme in the province of Bologna, Italy. In this town, nestled in the beautiful Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, he lives and works. Since 2012 he is happily married to Sara, his first supporter, but also severe critic, which, with her objective assessments, gives him a great boost in the grow and improve. Since childhood, photography has been his great passion: at the age of thirteen, he bought his first real camera, a Pentax K1000, with which he entered a wonderful world made of shutter speed, and aperture shots. Over the years, this passion has continued to evolve, and alongside it, his camera kit. He produces his photographs using 4 × 5 Large Format or 67 Medium Format systems. These are made up of various camera bodies and a copious set of lenses, which enable him to creatively interpret the most diverse shooting conditions. The repeated hikes in the beautiful valleys of the Apennines surrounding his house have always been a source of great joy for him and a way to reconcile with the hustle and bustle of every day.

Antonio is a master of light and is able to achieve the perfect balance between illumination and shadow again and again, offering up images so crisp, clear, and infused with detail that the viewer is transported to a whole new world of line and form. Equally impressive is Antonio’s use of composition. He creates just the right amount of tension to hold the viewer’s interest while inserting new meaning into ordinary subjects, landscapes, and urbanscapes.

Antonio’s work stands out in today’s digital world as his photographs are taken and processed in a traditional manner – the artist works with black and white film which gets developed and printed in his darkroom. As Antonio explains, each image isn’t edited on a computer but rather “the light has simply impressed, for a moment, the film exposed by me.”

He has always been fascinated by the camera and the enormous creative capacity allowed by this medium. He loves photography in black and white, because it is the most introspective, and truly allows him a very high degree of interpretation and control which he feels in his soul.

Despite realizing the significant advantages that could be gained from new technology, digital images never stole his heart. For him, film photography is part of his way of seeing and understanding things. He takes photographs when something hits him deep in his soul and, having a comprehensive understanding of the photographic process, he tries to capture the best interpretation of what he saw, combined with his state of mind.

 

BLACK AND WHITE FILM PHOTOGRAPHY:

Like all boys of Antonio’s generation, he approached the photograph using color film, but the more he liked to this art form, the more he was seduced by the magical world of black and white. He found a special charm in photographs taken with this practice, and he was attracted by the high level of creative it that this technique allows, during exposure of the film and then developing and printing. So he began to set up my darkroom, true heart for all photographers who still use this technique.

Today digital images have almost completely supplanted the traditional photography to film and in many ways that digital technology is fantastic. Personally he has nothing against digital photography, but he hates the excessive uses of image processing programs, able to alter and completely change the picture, not knowing if this is true or fictional. Today unfortunately when he looks at a photograph that captures him, after a moment of enthusiasm, he instinctively flinch doubtful, thinking: “is the wonderful picture that I’m looking at real or someone made fun of me using some sophisticated processing software?”.

Therefore he really wants to let you know that his pictures are real photographs, not edited on a computer. The light has simply impressed for a moment the film exposed by him.

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