Study and research, the shots by Luca Romano

6 years ago

Each image has a meaning that goes beyond what it shows. A photograph is a snapshot of the moment it was taken, it tells the stories of those in front of it, but also behind the lens. Luca Romano, who came to photography through the studio, knows this well.

Born in 1985, Luca has a degree in philosophical sciences and today, in addition to writing and collaborating for several newspapers, he continues to analyze the deep link between philosophy and image.

It is precisely looking for the connection between these two subjects that, in the end, Luca is convinced to take his camera and start shooting.

Some of Luca Romano’s shots will be exhibited in Turin for Ph.ocus – About Photography in the “Please, Stay Home” section, but we, intrigued, asked him some questions to let us tell the best of his work.

Don’t miss our interview!

How did you approach photography?

Generally, I approach techniques through theory and often starting from philosophy, so it happened with literary criticism and later also with photography. In this case, in fact, I studied the history of photography and then I moved on to the philosophy of photography. It was a path of several years that culminated with a doctorate dedicated to the relationship between philosophy and image. The idea is always to try to take a field outside its boundaries, contaminating it and sometimes even losing it. And so after reading and studying, I decided it was time to try to take some pictures.

This year you started the project “Close your eyes“. Tell us how the idea was born and what it consists of.

The idea was born little by little, it built itself by putting together different readings, from the studies on Levinas’ face to those on Nancy’s body and contact, to the question of the eye and the look in Bataille and Derrida. Putting the pieces back together again it seemed necessary to start a photographic path oriented to the staging of the impossibility of seeing visibility. And so, by subtracting the gaze from a portrait, I wanted to subtract the very visibility of the viewer and the one being looked at. Then continuing by subtraction I uncovered the shoulders, showing nudity hidden by the cut of the photo. And finally came the pandemic that also hid the possibility of seeing the mouth. And so in the end the lockdown became total, I tried to tell an inner closure that perhaps has not yet emerged completely socially, but with this second wave, unfortunately, will emerge even stronger.

In addition to photography, you write for several newspapers. To date, do you think the word or image has more strength?

I think that the word now has strength only in restricted environments, in the elite, while the image can reach everyone, because it is available immediately and because there is no image education in schools. There is a lot to be said about how it arrives. People learn, if they learn, to look at images (and photographs in particular), looking at them.

People learn, if they learn, to look at images (and photographs in particular), looking at them. It is still a culturally clandestine form, nobody teaches you in school that photography is a form of power, that choosing what to show you is a form of power, that the creation of a photographic archive corresponds to the waste of much material that will not be seen. While with the word this happens, the person who holds the speech is perceived as a person who holds the power, starting from the chair at school for teachers.

This is why an image education can bring many changes, starting from the body of the person being photographed, to the freedom to show oneself, to a culture of respect for those who choose to show themselves.

Which are the photographers or artists you are inspired by? And those you follow?

The photos I take are born mainly from words, so at the base of my shots there are pages of theory, more than photographs, so among the inspirations I can not fail to mention scholars like Didi-Huberman, or like Susan Sontag. Although I cannot deny that I loved Ghirri’s photos for their composition (but like everyone else, I hope), those of Brassai for their ability to tell the story of a body and those of many other great masters. However, I must admit that I prefer the comparison with less classical photographers, but who have a great desire to experiment and look in a different way. I am thinking of Alexander Bronfer, Fontanesi, Martina Matencio, Guen Fiore, and many others.

Is there a shot you are particularly attached to? Tell us about it.

If we talk about photos of great photographers, there is a photo of Balzac often attributed to Nadar (even if it was actually by Louis Auguste-Bisson) that tells very well both the birth of photography with its ghosts and a very fascinating story that is what Balzac wrote in “The unknown masterpiece”, a little book that was really very important both for art history and literature.
If instead, we are talking about a photograph of mine, maybe I would choose one of the first ones I made with the awareness that through photography I could tell that sense of loss and end that everything brings with it.

It is a photo born by chance on a beach, there are only crossed legs, there was a moment outside the image that should have lasted forever, like all happy moments, but, of course, as it should be, it didn’t happen. But all that no one will know is necessary to imagine it.