Albert Venturero: "Nothing in photography is correct, but it is real"

Albert Venturero: “Nothing in photography is correct, but it is real”

Εύη Καφίρη 28 Νοέ 2017 Interviews (ENG)

Albert Venturero is a street photographer and also a piano jazz player who describes that “at the same moment right and left hand initially are getting far from each other, but if you look carefully they are meeting on the main theme” so much in musical compositions as well as in his photos.

I read in your bio that you are using an iPhone 6, a 35mm film analog camera… What moves you to the photographic process: destination or voyage? Or could it be both? I say this because, depending on the procedure, different emotions can be awakened.
The main motives for the photographic process are the Human interests and to observe an instantaneous way of life of the people / city / hometown that I am into. The main issue (purpose) is to express my observations and show the world from my point of view. That’s why I’d rather prefer to explore second and third parallel streets to the main road, where the real street life exists.
To shoot with analog, digital or smart phone camera of course makes a huge difference for the self-satisfaction and the quality. On one hand, you took a photo with a mechanical masterpiece M6 and on the other with electronically well-developed smart phone camera. The results in street photography between the camera that I mainly use (digital mirrorless Fujifilm X series) and M6 analog are very slight…especially after the film processing techniques that I may apply with LightRoom and Iridient developer, digital processors.

Do you believe that everything in photography is correct? Does it only need to contain the substance that characterizes photography itself technically, without loans from other arts such as painting, music, poetry?
Npthing in photography is correct, but it is real. A photographer can enrich the feeling that he wants to express or vice versa. A photographer can also be influenced by a variety of arts in his photos…what the scene reminds him of, a few lines of poetry may be combined in the frame. However, from my point of view, it should not be the leading issue. Otherwise, it limits me.

In your photo there are people that are calm and peaceful in my perception. Is this how you see them or this is how they are at this moment?
Not necessarily. It’s instantaneous, but the one thing I am quite sure about is that those who enrich the emotions in the general frame in my shots are the people.

Realism in photography art. Is this a question that has to be answered?
In my style of human interests and street photography, my answer is yes.

In your photo even though there are people everywhere, the frame often goes away from them (this is one thing I really love). Do you think that this defines a real street photographer?
It is how I absorb the audience (lookers-on) to the atmosphere of the scene. I can describe it, as you play the piano and initially you feel the left hand and right hand getting far from each other on improvisation, but in the end you notice they meet on the main theme.

When does a photo become art? Does it happen by definition or it never does?
Once I read this question, it seemed as if it is almost 100 years old and never answered concretely. Some pioneering photographers can be recognized straight away by their photographs, with great compositions, like paintings. Light and Love by Julia Margaret Cameron (1865), Ansel Adams’ great landscapes with a great technique from my point of view is art and he is an artist (those examples can be increased). I think for the greater interest, the whole structure of value is in art. And with today’s communication facilities, multimedia and high technology, almost anything can be called art in our modern culture.

Ignoring the nice or beautiful themes and focusing on everyday scenes, do you think that the photographer creates something like the photographic version of ‘arte povera’, fit in street photography?
My answer is hidden inside your question. I think that yes, it can be fit in street photography, like the daily trash on the street with the people and industrial leftovers. Plenty of scenes can be obtained and can be created, but whether my answer quite fits with the concept of arte Povera, I don’t know since I am not very familiar with it.

Do you think that the photographer must first feel and then go ahead and shoot, or should he acts instinctively? (I clearly underwrite emotion engagement).
I think it’s both. Initially, your first feelings lead you to the scene and form the base of the frame. Afterwards, the shots are coming instinctively and instantaneously. For example, your first feeling and some imaginations take you to the beach to do some beach compositions and capturing of the geometrical placement of three people coming instinctively and instantaneously, as you see them.

Focusing is part of photography anyway, so the objects become part of history! But what about the photographer? Where is his presence in this?
For me, the most important role is that of one who stands behind the viewfinder, the one who interprets the general atmosphere and the feeling of the scene.