Fish Zhang, bettern known on Instagram with the name fiiiiiish, is a young photographer from Tokyo who tells the world around her. Her look is very particular and often, the images she offers to the public, generate a feeling of uncertainty and destabilization, which are summed up well with the word “weird”. Poses are dampened by a narrative mood that tends more to seize the moment than to illustrate every single detail of a story. Sexuality finds ample space in her photographic production, which reminds us in part Ren Hang‘s style. The woman is represented without artifice, but with simplicity and realism, although in the shots there is a great sense of composition.

Visit Fish’s website and take a look at her work in the gallery.

Courtesy Fish Zhang

The Italian street and lifestyle photographer Nicolò Rinaldi embarks on a genuine exploration of the everyday world through photography. After starting with landscapes and outdoor photography, Rinaldi specializes in documentary and street photography, identifying clichés and embracing the ordinary in crowded situations. In the series Mondo Mondano, Rinaldi delves into the heart of social nightlife. The vibrant fabric of parties and festivals pulsates in his shots, reflecting the eccentricity of the contemporary scene. Glitter, drinks, strobe lights, sunglasses intertwine with tattoos, kisses, shouts, and extravagant hats in a captivating social inquiry. All captured on film, transcending time and opting for a more authentic narrative.

Courtesy Nicolò Rinaldi

We are now in the midst of the holiday season, a time when everyone seems a bit kinder and more romantic, but also when some enjoy a touch of irony. Amidst various memes and Instagram posts, what amused us most were the photographs by Laura Baiardini (on Instagram @baiardiny), specializing in still life photography, photo post-production, and a passion for props and color palettes. With an extremely contemporary aesthetic and vibrant colors, Baiardini’s images capture attention for their humor and meticulously crafted compositions, akin to a movie set. Her inspiration primarily stems from social media and everything around her, «even from an Esselunga meat jelly». Through these specific shots, Laura Baiardini highlights an unusual side of the holiday season that, deep down, we all experience. From terrible gifts to family psychodramas, we all come out feeling exhausted and full, in every sense. But let’s not dwell too long—enjoy scrolling through the images.

Courtesy Laura Baioni

«A risky project, a bit like writing,» Catanian photographer Salvo Sibilla explains when talking to us about his street photography project entitled Sani e Salvi. It is a project that was not born to be so. A collection of private amateur shots, taken with an iPhone, that take on a public dimension. It all begins in 2020 when Salvo starts shooting on the street, partly to seek company in a new city-which in the case of Milan is capable of making you feel very lonely, and partly to capture the extravagance around him that he was not used to. In the summer of 2022 he decided to go public and share part of his smartphone gallery. Salvo encapsulates in one project his amateur shots “full of lights, faces and lives,” as his collaborator and friend Loris Di Bella puts it. Stripped of their intimate dimension, the “anti-ethical” photographs – using Salvo’s words – come to life by dialoguing with each other and realizing the presence of a great common denominator: immediacy layered with extravagance.

Sani e Salvi does not stay only in Milan. He travels different streets and different cities, from Milan to Amsterdam, from Rotterdam to Sestri Levante, from Finale Ligure to Pedara, and finally from Bologna to Catania, Salvo Sibilla’s hometown. Salvo’s favorite subjects are elderly people, he himself tells us the reason for this choice. «The first reason, the most human one, is because they remind me of my grandparents, the people I miss the most since I moved to Milan. I am a very romantic person, so I look for this aspect in my shots as well. In older people I find the same pure and kind soul of my grandparents».

This project becomes for Salvo Sibilla a kind of adaptation therapy in a new city. Coming from Catania and landing in Milan, the cultural differences are many. «I liked walking in the street and observing everything around me. Coming from a small town like Catania, unfortunately you are born with stereotypes and mental limitations. When I arrived in Milan, these visual limits began to fall away, all those aspects that I initially judged as extravagances became normality today». The photographs thus become a way of relating to the new everyday life and, at the same time, of discovering a new city. In this sense, it is interesting to emphasize Salvo Sibilla’s photographic approach, which he himself describes as “somewhat anti-ethical.” «My technique is to act like a tourist. I stop by pretending to look for a street and take the photograph of the person, very closely,» he explains, «Very often older people do not notice it, as well as my grandparents although they, with time, have learned to recognize my methodology and now they are very happy when I take them, they feel a bit like the protagonists».

«Sani e Salvi can be said to have been born recently and still has everything to discover and to have come to the end, gaining wisdom,» we read again in Loris Di Bella’s text. Therefore, the project does not end here; on the contrary, it becomes for Salvo Sibilla a starting point that has taught him «to never give up,» as Salvo confesses to us, who closes the interview by quoting the phrase of a friend of his: “keep doing what you do regardless of everything and everyone.”

Courtesy Salvo Sibilla