Photo © Simone Donati
Talent of the Year 2020 - NOMINEE: Simone Donati
What remains
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Since the beginning of 2016, I have been working on a project about the human and natural landscape of the internal areas of the Italian Southern Apennines, a journey that took me over 4 years from Aspromonte in Calabria to the border between Molise and Abruzzo. In the course of numerous trips I went to discover these territories, largely unknown but rich in traditions, slow rhythms and breathtaking landscapes. Territories characterized by a large emigration and consequent depopulation.
The project is made up of images of urban and natural landscape, together with posed portraits and indoor photographs. The choice to work in film and with a medium format camera led me to slow down the photographic approach a lot, a rhythm that I consider very suitable for the life of these places. The people I photographed are often the result of fortuitous circumstances and encounters made along the way..
With this photographic series I would like to return an image of Southern Italy far from the chronicles and reports, capable of contrasting the common vision very often characterized by attention to crime and bad business.
About author:
Simone Donati (1977) was born in Florence where he completed the three-year course in photography at the Studio Marangoni in 2005. After an internship at Magnum Photos in New York, from 2006 he is engaged in documentary photography. During the past years his attention has focused on the political and social situation of Italy.
Simone was selected as one of the three finalists in the portrait category of the 2008 Sony World Photography Awards and received the 3rd place at the 2010 Ponchielli prize with "Welcome to Berlusconistan". With "Valley of Angels" was a finalist at the 2011 OjodePez Award.
His photographs have been part of solo and group shows in Italy and abroad and have been published in the main Italian and international magazines, among which Der Spiegel, D - La Repubblica, Geo, IL, Internazionale, Io Donna, L’Espresso, Le Monde Magazine, Monocle, Newsweek, Newsweek Japan, Panorama, Sette and Vanity Fair.
In 2015 he published "Hotel Immagine" his first self-published book, from a 5 years project following myths and icons of the Italian contemporary imaginary.
Simone is based in Florence.
The project is made up of images of urban and natural landscape, together with posed portraits and indoor photographs. The choice to work in film and with a medium format camera led me to slow down the photographic approach a lot, a rhythm that I consider very suitable for the life of these places. The people I photographed are often the result of fortuitous circumstances and encounters made along the way..
With this photographic series I would like to return an image of Southern Italy far from the chronicles and reports, capable of contrasting the common vision very often characterized by attention to crime and bad business.
About author:
Simone Donati (1977) was born in Florence where he completed the three-year course in photography at the Studio Marangoni in 2005. After an internship at Magnum Photos in New York, from 2006 he is engaged in documentary photography. During the past years his attention has focused on the political and social situation of Italy.
Simone was selected as one of the three finalists in the portrait category of the 2008 Sony World Photography Awards and received the 3rd place at the 2010 Ponchielli prize with "Welcome to Berlusconistan". With "Valley of Angels" was a finalist at the 2011 OjodePez Award.
His photographs have been part of solo and group shows in Italy and abroad and have been published in the main Italian and international magazines, among which Der Spiegel, D - La Repubblica, Geo, IL, Internazionale, Io Donna, L’Espresso, Le Monde Magazine, Monocle, Newsweek, Newsweek Japan, Panorama, Sette and Vanity Fair.
In 2015 he published "Hotel Immagine" his first self-published book, from a 5 years project following myths and icons of the Italian contemporary imaginary.
Simone is based in Florence.