PhC Capalbiofotografia 2011 is dedicated to “walking”, interpreted as an act associated to photographic vision, searching for a point of view ⁽¹⁾; an act of thinking and concentrating, against the idea of “epic walk”: a daily, minor, intimate ⁽²⁾, sometimes repetitive act made of small big things ⁽³⁾.

I walk, I see, I photograph: these three actions lead to an idea of photography that extends to the greatest freedom, touching upon imponderable fields such as emotions and abstractions, in an ever-increasing centrality of relations between the interiority of single authors and their relationship with the photographic practice.

“Photography is the language best suited to describing the complex relationship between itself and the act of walking, which can be a premise for the pose, the subject or both” ⁽⁴⁾.

It comes from afar, from the very history of the medium itself in connection with the history of the world and its documentation. It comes from deep needs, technological advances, and form the visual saturation/invasion upon us.

“If everything is made visible and perceived as accessible, what margin does photography have to continue to reveal something, to manage to take us to a place that we do not know, or to trigger an emotion that we did not expect? (…) Perhaps the fact that photography gives us the impression of having shown us everything of the world that we inhabit can give us the freedom to start imagining everything anew, to draw maps starting from any point, and to start losing ourselves in an unknown geography again” ⁽⁵⁾.

These thoughts are the basis for countless conversations with many of the authors involved in the Capalbiofotografia project in the past three years. I think of Don McCullin and his forests of Somerset or at David Spero and his project Settlements. Guy Tillim just returned from a one year trip in Polynesia, the perfect example of getting lost in an unfamiliar geography with the utmost freedom, and shared his experience starting the new series of workshops in Capalbio.

In addition during the month preceding the opening of Capalbiofotografia photographers, curators and critics will be invited to think about the theme of the festival, leaving them free interpretation of its possible forms. Every week for a month, from March 2011 until April 2011, the blog will show new points of view and new shifts in contemporary photography for a natural introduction to the reading of the Festival.

1. In 2004 Olivo Barbieri began to take photographs from above in his work on Rome, beginning with the idea of not being able to stop at or on a ‘point of view.’ Within the fluidity of our meaning of ‘walking’ we also have our Olivo Barberi experience from ‘high up’.
2. In 1974 the German film director Werner Herzog began a trek from Monaco to Paris, to visit his friend Lotte Eisner who was very ill. He then described this experience in his book ‘Of Walking in Ice’ which was a perfect example of low-key walking seeking out internal and external visions.
3. In Guy Tillim’s works, from ‘Petros Village’ to ‘Avenue Patrice Lumumba’, one has a physical sensation of daily ‘walking.’
4. Francesco Zanot, Checklist, PhC Blog, 2011.
5. Fabio Severo, The neckless of memories, PhC Blog, 2011.