Researched by Roberta Pastore
MAURO CANGEMI
Born in Naples on 25/10/1962 in the San Lorenzo district, he lives in Naples in the Vicaria district. Since 1978 he has pursued his passion for photography, studying imagesand poetry of the great masters. Dedicating many hours of his youth to the film, the darkroom, alternating black and white to color, taking care personally of his own images, to arrive in 2000 to digital photography. Architect by profession, photographer by need. The requirement of the story, the communication through images, the sharing of feelings. He prefers the use of the camera without any automated function with the exception of the light metering. He prefers the ” Hyper-focal ” technique. He favors the Street Photography genre.
When did you your passion for the photography start?
Looking at my older brother. He owned a beautiful black ASAHI PENTAX Spotmatic with a 50mm Takumar F1.4. It was 1978, I had just turned 16. Always thanks to him I discovered the darkroom, where I learned the technique of film developing and printing. Totally overwhelmed by the passion, I began to buy the first books on the technique (I remember dearly Andreas Feininger) and the photographic composition of the greatmasters. The need to tell a story grew stronger and stronger because, being born in a city that is special in every sense, it was enough to walk through the Historical Center and inevitably one would remain speechless observing the laminating light creeping through the hung sheets, the same one that reverberated on the ancient walls of tuff or the lavastone paving of the road.
The images of people, daughters of ancient folks, with the mimicry of the gestures and the loud sound of the voice, associated with the scents and smells coming from homes on street level (low), slowly sublimated in the image taking form in my mind: just like on a sheet of paper dipped in the developing bath. And inevery alley of all the districts of the city, the story turned into new tale. I grew up like this: admiring such beauty in silence, waiting with infinite love and patience the precisemoment to stop the moment of my tale.
Which was your first camera?
MIRANDA Auto Sensorex EE – Auto Miranda 50mm f1,8.
What is photography to you? And what should not be instead?
It is capturing a unique moment of life, that makes a recognizable and shared sense,a mix of unique factors related to the places, the people, the time, trying as much as possible to depart from the basic rules. I would not want it to be coy and self- congratulatory, but a testimony of personal sensitivity towards the changing reality, at the service of the future observers.
Which masters of photography inspires you?
Alfred Eisenstaedt, Robert Doisneau, Elliott Erwitt, Henri Cartier Bresson.
What is the photo that struck you the most of a great photographer of the story?
Elliott Erwitt, Men Fighting, New York, 1950.
What is your favorite technique?
Hyper-focal and total manual control of all the parameters .
Why do street photography?
I think that, for a photographer, it is a daily test . What you have experienced just a moment ago, it does not apply to the next one, nothing is ever repeated in this genre, a irrepressible and never banal provider of ideas and stimuli for cultural growth.
Which is your best shot and what does it represent for you?
I am very attached to the photographs of old ladies, residents in level road housing (low) of the historic center. Each one of them is related to a story, sweet or melancholic, happy or sad, often told by them through the memory clouded by the years. Stories related with availability and pride, because in those moments of personal consideration and involvement, in their infinite wisdom, they are able to perceive the quality of the people in front of them and that intends to portray them. I often received gratitude and caressesas they slowly composed, with their hands, their hair.
What is your relationship with the street and the people that are in your shots?
I never had any problems because I move so obviously, never in furtive way. I always ask, with an elegant and never aggressive approach, permission to portray, explaining the motivation, trying to make the subjects participant of the story that I intend to tell, never taken out of context. Nearly every time, the most artistic ideas come from the subjects own involvement.