I have always thought every single event is linked to the one just coming before and those ones immediately following. A kind of chain of events where you can catch the true meaning only when you try to connect all the dots.
Especially with Photography. I start running a project and eventually I discover some technique, places, people that bring me to something (or somewhere) else in a continuum where I keep learning and feeling realized.
Why do I tell you this story?
First of all because it is something I truly believe and I encourage you all to keep walking in Photography, study and learn and, eventually, all dots will be connected and you will find your own way.
Furthermore I take the opportunity to tell you a real life example of what I am just saying:
I have a subscription to a photography magazine called "Gente di Fotografia". I really like it and I subscribe largely in advance the forthcoming issue for the following year. 1 year ago I went to Mia Photo Fair (a Milan based fair of contemporary photography) and, as usual, I do my subscription to that magazine. It happens to me I meet a lady, lately I would have discovered her name was Antonella Monzoni, member of the editorial board of the magazine. We start chatting and I get my own magazine. One year after I am in Parma to attend Colornophotolife a photofestival based in Colorno, close to Parma. I was there with Marylena and we both are strongly attracted from a photographic book named "Madame". Within the book there are so many "dots" part of our common life, the reason why we are both connected to those pictures: a story of a French woman (Henriette Niépce), strongly charming, getting immediately the attention of Mary, being her half French and in love with those atmospheres. There is also a nice link between the origin of the Photography (Henriette Niépce is the great grandaughter of Niecephore Niéce, one of the founding fathers of the Photography). But there is also a nice reportage of a beautiful house on the countryside, like the one we are looking for and willing to buy to change our life. After having paid the book, the author comes to the shopping point and, guess what, she is Antonella, the lady of Gente di Fotografia I just mentioned before.
As usual I ask her to sign the book, as I am always doing it with any author I meet along the path. I also ask her a kind of advice, as am I used to do with any photographer and I discover she started her career in photography quite late in her life (approx when I started) and she is specifically focused on humanistic reportage, expressing through an intimist style. She is expressing what I am try to, she started late as I did and she has a received several recognition you can find, jointly wih her works, in this website.
http://antonellamonzoni.it/home
"Ferita Armena", "Madame", "Volevo essere Mina", "Il matrimonio di Luba, Ucraina", "Lalibela" are just some of the work I strongly encourage you to have a look as I also strong encourage you to look backward, follow your dots and build your own world in Photography or anywhere else.

Today the story I want to tell you is about the power of dreams.
Everything started back in July 2018. I was in Arles, visiting one of the most important festival of Photography. I was there with some friends of mine and we were really breathing photography in each and every corner of the village (I really suggest you to be there once in life to live an immersive experience on photography). It was very hot and we were walking around since the morning. We stopped for a while on a small square where a local bookshop was selling some old books (photography books, of course) and new ones, limited edition hand-written by authors.
I found there "Aurores", one of the not-so-common color photography book of Alain.
I studied a bit of this French author, born on May 1, 1968 in Bordeaux, France.
He is then a photographer but, first, he is father of six.

In 2004, as he needed to put together a portfolio of his work as a sculptor, he acquired a camera, and thus developed a taste for macrophotography, spurred by his passion for entomology.
Later on, he pointed his lens towards his growing family which became his major subject : a life on the edge of the world, where intemporality and the universality of childhood meet.

Now you will ask me: "wasn't it a story about power of dreams? What about Alain?"

He is the human being proof we (everybody of us) could turn our reality into dreams. No matter the age you have. You could (should) start today building it.
One day I will visit him in his home in Bordeaux. I really would like to see and live the beauty of the mess of his masterpiece of family.
I still remember his own words when we met during "Le temps retrouvé" personal exhibition on November 29 Arts in progress Gallery, in Milan.
I have asked him "what do you think could be the best advice for a beginner, like me". I remember I asked him this simple question in a very bad french.

"voyager léger"

"this is my warmest recommendation for you:"

"voyager léger"

"Get rid of anything is useless and focus on what really matters."

I hope one day I will meet him again to tell him I have been able to put in practice his own suggestion.

[Note of the author; you can find some pictures of mine when I met him in Milan. I was so happy that I started shaking my hands as I am always doing when I am nervous. Marylena, my love, took a picture of it. Without knowing it she has been able to capture the real essence. She has been able to "voyager léger". Chapeau!]