I LIKE TELLING STORIES

GABRIELE RODRIQUEZ - 1960

He lives in Verona with his wife and 3 children. Teacher of business subjects until 1997. He has practiced the profession of Chartered Accountant since 1990. Having devoted himself to photography since 1977, this has become an activity that has gradually revealed itself to be more than a passion, more than a simple hobby. Photography has probably filled an area of one's cultural life that the studies followed have only touched upon.

My photographic journey starts far back in time. I shot the first roll of film in 1977 with a Yashica Electro 35 GT. In all these years I have used everything, Canon, Leica, Zenza Bronica, up to the Linhof 10x12 which is beautifully displayed in my studio (as a non-photographic accountant).

I have photographed everything, as I say in my bio, I have done all genres (almost, I have not delved into glamour). I like to travel and therefore travel reporting has always occupied me and brought me personal satisfaction. And I still don't deny it. If I go on a trip I am equipped and bring home a nice document.

In 2014, after a beautiful reportage in India in B&W, I found myself emptied of any stimulus, I reached a point where traditional photography no longer satisfied me.

I was missing something that traditional photography couldn't give me. I didn't immediately perceive what it was.

I began to see some works at the Photographic Club that I frequented, still very photographic but which certainly stood out from the crowd (among all of them Ivano Bolondi).

I began to see some work by some American or European authors who used the smartphone and its applications to "build" real works. In a literary sense, figurative photography was implied in favor of a reconstructed creative photography. Images taken with the telephone, fused together, emptied of the original context in such a way as to mean something completely different. I had discovered MobileArt.

In Verona I met a friend, Giancarlo Beltrame, one of the main proponents of MobileArt in Italy and belonging to an international group all united in their works by the exclusive and extreme use of the iPhone and third-party photographic applications.

I spoke with the latter to understand the philosophy of this "photographic avant-garde" (personally I consider it such) and I discovered that already in 2014 the first International Salon of Mobile Art had been proposed at the MART in Rovereto (TN), establishing a prize with almost 300 participants from all over the world.

It was a real shock, taking into account my passion for contemporary art worldwide but above all for 20th century Italian art, I fully understood what the potential of these instruments was. I am a regular visitor to galleries, museums and art biennials and the journey could not have been different.

The democracy of the medium (we all have a smartphone in our pocket) and the possibility of making art have literally given me an inner fire, a kind of performance anxiety as if wanting to make up for lost time.

At the beginning, however, it wasn't so simple. Contents which are the result of planning, of a mental path that also matures during construction, are fine, but the applications and related uses are multiple and all different so the workflow becomes frenetic depending on the result that is obtained. he wants to get and very fast for fear of losing the thread.

The phone or tablet became "digital canvases" where the capacitive pen or fingers moved on their surface, contouring, cutting, emptying, filling, painting.

The original image (made strictly with the telephone) is emptied of its main meaning and takes on a completely different one. This was the creative factor of the whole activity. The fusion between various elements, even different ones, and the subsequent transformation made it possible to obtain results that were unthinkable until 10 years ago. An extreme, a forcing, an exaggeration of image editors, deliberately recognizable, used with the right taste to achieve often astonishing results. Please note that we are not in the field of DigitalArt as the starting image was and always is one or more photographic shots. In August of this year (2022) I began to approach the algorithms of Artificial Intelligence first with a certain fear then with great satisfaction. Let's get this doubt out of the way right away: we are no longer in the field of photography. There are no sensors, optics, shutter speed or aperture. There is only a machine (the PC), a portal (the various platforms Dall-E, MidJourney etc.) and a command prompt that awaits instructions according to a conventional descriptive language. The Author translates his idea into a prompt, the algorithm performs, sometimes well, sometimes badly (MidJourney is in the Beta 4 version and I don't dare think in a few years.

The Author's intervention becomes fundamental because without his instructions the machine creates nothing. That's where he waits...

Therefore, in a very simplifying but not exhaustive way (this is not the place designated to unleash the ideologies or philosophies to come), the Machine/Author relationship becomes an essential unicum as are all the other tools available to Artists.

It is a further "TOOL" available to the Author, usable and accessible to everyone where the difference between one result and another is given by the Authorship, or rather the ability to organize the images according to a very specific plan that cannot ignore the contents.

All the intellectual capacity of the Author becomes necessary to extrapolate from the cold algorithms of the themed IMAGES.

Otherwise AI becomes a game as in most cases, destined to be forgotten prematurely in a corner like those toys found under the tree and which soon become boring.

For everything just stated, after long reflection, I believe it is necessary to inevitably arrive at a summary, probably obvious but not for everyone. The Artist is such regardless of the tool he uses, and the final result must have as its ultimate aim that of moving emotions in the user. Whether it is a fresco, a painting, a photograph, a print, everything is summed up in a concept of IMAGE which becomes a common factor of the various disciplines.

Bordering on blasphemy, one might dare to think that the tools in the hands of the Authors have a residual importance, at most they become skills.

Most of my works are subsequently organized and published in eBooks on dedicated platforms (40 eBooks published to date). I keep an archive that is starting to be full of FineArt prints in sheets of various sizes on cotton paper or, depending on the project, printed on Polaroid or Fuji Instax support.

The latest works in the ANTHROPOS series are printed on large canvas and subsequently painted with acrylic, watercolor and ink to give matter and further elements of recognition and uniqueness.

For me, experimentation has become an essential style, an approach to fully satisfy my passion and my vision of life. Almost a sort of therapy that I can no longer do without. This doesn't mean that I put photography in the drawer, on the contrary, in March 2022 I purchased a FUJICA 645 PRO (analogue folding) to carry with me in my backpack for my mountain treks. Ansel Adams is never forgotten!

AWARDS

PRIMO PREMIO all’IPPA AWARDS 2021sezione Panorama, concorso fotografico mondiale riservato alle fotografie fatte con iPhone;

SECONDO PREMIO al NEW YORK PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS 2022 Special Category;

SECONDO PREMIO al TIFA 2022 (TOKYO INTERNATIONAL FOTO AWARDS) nella sez. Portifolio.

TERZO PREMIO al TIFA 2021 (TOKYO INTERNATIONAL FOTO AWARDS) nella sez. FineArt.

Due SPECIAL MENTIONS al FAPA - 2022 (Fine Art Photography Awards – London).

HONORABLE MENTION al TIFA 2022 (TOKYO INTERNATIONAL FOTO AWARDS).

FINALISTA al LONDON INTERNATIONAL CREATIVE COMPETITION 2023

GOLDEN WINNER 2023 al THE MUSE PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS 2023 (New York - Cat. Books “CIRCUS”).

BRONZE WINNER al BIFA 2023 (Budapest . Cat. Books “DOOMSDAY CLOCK”)

HONORABLE MENTION al TIFA 2023 (TOKYO INTERNATIONAL FOTO AWARDS- “CIRCUS”)

BIBLIOGRAFIA:

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