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It's difficult to concentrate in very few lines the mix of emotions coming from seeing my last photo book H.M. showcased in Arles for the LUMA Dummy Book Award.
Thank you for all passing by, giving me feedback, showing interest and opening doors to new collaborations. It has been a real honor being selected among 200 books coming from all over the world.
This is just one of the never ending beginnings, a segway to keep exploring, learning and improving in this beautiful journey.
Ciao Arles, grazie di tutto!

p.s. a special thanks goes to Massimo Mastrorillo and David Mozzetta who have helped me on the editing and design phase.

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!]

First time I "met" Rinko Kawauchi it was one year ago, more or less, while visiting an exhibition in Carla Sozzani art gallery.
I have been fascinated by the tenderness of images and cover of the book Illuminance.
During that period (and also nowadays, by the way..) I was focusing on the heart of capturing simple things and getting rid of anything not "useful" to convey messages I was thinking about.
I realized afterwards that Rinko Kawauchi photography is all about "haiku".
"Haiku" is a kind of minimalist poetry, meditation done through simple sentences, telling the Nature and the day-by-day surrounding us.
Moving from poetry to Photography the concept does not change so much.
Rinko is able to transmit that sense of simplicity, joy for basic things, power of nature, birth, existence, spirit.

When I travelled in Tokyo, summer of 2018, I desperately tried to met her in person without succeeding. I think (I tried to convince myself...)she is not willing to spend time with strangers. She really want to focus on what really matters.
That's the picture I imagine of this Japanese photographer, shooting mostly in 6×6 format. It's easy to recognize her pictures: mastering natural light she is able to give back smooth portion of her world.



“It’s not enough that the photograph is beautiful. If it doesn’t move my heart, it wont move anyone else’s heart.”-Rinko Kawauchi
http://rinkokawauchi.com/