Do you like this photo?

Uncomfortable conversations

It's a simple and direct question, and I would appreciate an equally simple and direct answer, or rather I would appreciate an honest and clean answer. We are talking about photography, only and exclusively photography, so what is your answer? Yes or no?

This is the classic photograph that, at the end of the day, scrolling through the shots brought home, if it were up to me would have been deleted, discarded, without half measures! I don't think I'm very wrong if I assume that many of you would have done the same.

Now I'll tell you a secret: I didn't take this photo! I don't want to say who it is, perhaps many have already recognized it, but it is an image of a great name in Italian and international photography, and this image has been printed in books and magazines, so evidently it has been highly appreciated and worthy of recognition by critics and the public.

I, for goodness sake, do not want to get into the merits of artistic criticism, or of what may or may not be liked, I think that every image, just for the fact of having been taken, represents an emotion, something that has struck the soul of the photographer, and an emotion, a feeling, is always a state of mind that deserves great respect. and even more the courage and dignity to express it!

I have great respect and admiration for the author of this image, and some of his photographs have a poetry and an emotional impact that is truly incredible! I do not even intend to implicitly express an opinion on this photograph, I took one at random, among the many hundreds that I could have chosen, by many different authors. The point on which I want to draw attention is another: are we or are we not able to appreciate a photograph (but also a painting, a book, a piece of music...) in a "neutral" way, without being influenced by the social and cultural context? Without being influenced by the "myth" of the famous person, the master, the guru?

This photograph, without reporting the author, probably wouldn't get many likes on social media, but by putting the author's name the discussion would certainly change completely: but it's a photograph that wants to express this, or that, the author wanted to say, do, highlight... criticism would be unleashed, without the author it would probably pass into general indifference. These are only, obviously, personal opinions.

Let's be clear: I'm not here to judge anything or anyone, of course not, I'm nobody, but only to make a social consideration: if a certain photographer, famous and prominent, takes a photograph, that photo is necessarily beautiful, if Tom, Tom and Jerry takes a beautiful photograph, however beautiful and perfect it may be, his work is worth nothing and does not deserve consideration, because that photo is only by Tom and Jerry and not by someone else! This is the state of the facts, and prove me wrong if you have proof!

A similar argument applies in every field, not just in art. Think for example of the very famous artist Andy Warhol, you know that he painted canvases and metal plates with a coat of paint, and then he and his friends, during parties, urinated on them, to make them oxidize! Now those canvases and those plates are considered works of art, they are worth thousands of dollars, and they are exhibited in the best museums in the world! You try to do it yourself... they'll lock you up as depraved, if you're lucky! But he was Andy Warhol, the one who boxed up "artist's shit"! And in this he had completely hit the nail on the head with the meaning of this very speech of mine! A shit, if it's from an artist, is not shit, but art!

All this should sound irreverent and on the edge of absurdity, instead all this is in the normal order of things, no one asks questions, no one questions this way of reasoning. Let it always be clear that I have nothing against art, against Warhol or against pee or poop, I hope you can grasp the heart of the matter, which in itself is rather simple.

Now I'll give you a more personal example: some time ago I had an episode, inside a group on the well-known social network FB, one fine day I noticed an image published by Tizio that has something familiar to me, and under that photo I read a large number of likes and many enthusiastic comments about the photograph. Intrigued, I want to delve deeper, and looking at that image carefully, my memory slowly awakens ... yes ... yes, that's exactly it, it was a photograph of mine taken and published on social media many years before, it was just cropped badly, to eliminate my signature in the corner, in this way the photograph itself was devoid of any harmony and compositional rules! And yet, stolen and uglified, it had achieved enormous success, while the original version published by me, had only gained a few miserable likes, like every image of mine on social media. I didn't know Tizio, but evidently he was a person to be kept happy, given the numerous flatteries, to stay on an elegant jargon, which he had acquired by making himself look good with the work of others, and disfiguring it to boot!

What do you want, in the end the "bad guy" was me who had taken it badly, after all it was just a photo, that's what the good followers of Tizio had decreed! Great, great life lesson! After this, and other similar episodes, I started to "let go" of social media, and to dedicate myself more to my life and my interests, without having to answer to anyone.

Call it a post, call it a vent, call it what you want, but please don't call it polemical, because that wasn't my intention. My intention is simply to pass on to you the lesson that I myself learned: don't worry about other people's judgment, don't chase likes, because they don't serve you any purpose (even more so if they are bought, they certainly serve those who sell them to you), don't try to please everyone, try to please yourself, be honest and sincere, go your own way, listen to yourself honestly, seek your truth, be authentic, always!

Don't judge, and don't let others judge you, life is not a competition, it's not a contest! If your photographs express your emotions, they are certainly beautiful! Word of pinco pallino ...Word of any amateur photographer...