Claudio Rasano – EVERYONE LIVE IN THE SAME PLACE LIKE BEFORE
EVERYONE LIVE IN THE SAME PLACE LIKE BEFORE
My series shows the different side of life in South Africa using portraits and landscapes. My portraits are frontal taken at eye level, looking directly and ahead, the face cast in shadow showing a strong and determined expression. The portraits are evident that the person is the subject of interest reflecting the face of the person using no background to provide context or embellishment. Besides the portraits, landscapes also form part of my series: houses and cottages shown as a shell and then expanded to reflect the vast expanses of the Cape Town and Johannesburg landscapes. What connects the photographs is the impressive natural light of South Africa. It testifies to an immediacy, an instantaneous and honest encounter that places the object at the centre.
A lot of my work seems to explore the relationship between spaces and humans. This series of photos will often explore the subject within the space and the space as the subject itself. I think I manage to capture some of the personality that these spaces hold in contrast with that of the actual person. Though they may seem empty, they are truly full. Full of personality and history. My work revolves around human beings. I try to show my counterpart without any artistic falsification, to show them the way the really are. My tool, the camera, is always discrete, never obtrusive, truly honest. I only take pictures when the people agree.
Claudio Rasano is a photographer who lives in Basel and has been awarded with prizes such as the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize, in the National Portrait Gallery, London, the European Publishers Award for Photography and the American Photo Images of the Year. His works have been exhibited internationally, for example at the National Portrait Gallery London, the Hasselblad Masters Finalists in London, the Fotobuchtage at the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg, at the Australian Centre for Photography in Sydney, the PHotoEspaña in Madrid and the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh.
The jury of the National Portrait Gallery, composed by Nicholas Cullinan, Philip Prodger, Carole Sandrin and Christiane Monarchi, Nadav Kander and Tim Eyles awarded the Italian-Swiss photographer (born in 1970, Basel, Switzerland)
When Rasano captures people or landscapes, he shows his opposite without artifical distortion, mostly in a natural light. It is important to him to show the subject authentic and in its habitual environment.
