Valter Faedda

Bio

If I was asked "Why did you start photographing?" my reply would be simply "I did because I cannot draw".

During my first year at school I remember admiring my young school friend Carlo's free-hand drawings of herds of elephants in the savannah. He would never copy them from photographs or illustrations but instead he always drew images spontaneously formed in his creative mind.

In Carlo's sharp and well defined drawings, through those rigorous and proportioned lines, I could glimpse into a secret world that remained inaccessible to me as I was not able to draw.

This inability coupled with a strong desire to represent reality as it happened in front of my eyes eventually inspired me 'to paint with light' anything that I was not able to draw with a pencil.

 

In 1988 I held my first 'important' camera, a reflex Nikon F-301, bought with my first 'real' salary and started to shoot in colour and black and white. Shortly afterwards, high printing costs stirred me towards shooting transparencies which I enthusiastically embraced because of the freedom they provided me with.

 

Always eager to push myself further I equipped myself with 35mm bulk film and reusable film cassettes and began printing at home in a makeshift darkroom which I would set up every time from scratch - preparations lasted at least one hour.. - in the bathroom.

Unfortunately my Nikon F-301 had a manufacturer fault affecting light metering and my photographs were invariably over or under exposed! Nonetheless.. the first camera is never forgotten and it surely sealed my photographic fate.

 

In 1995 I purchased my first digital camera although I immediately felt that it would have been impossible to abandon film altogether. In 2006 I bought my first digital reflex camera, the Canon 400D, followed in 2009 by the Canon 50D armed with professional L24-70mm and 16-35mm lenses. I had opted and stuck with brand Canon as I was painfully reminiscent of the hundreds of photographs ruined by the Nikon F-301's faulty exposure.

 

In 2012 I switched to a Fuji Xpro-1 to travel lighter but, despite being a wonderful digital camera, the desire to shoot on film came back. I had found digital post-production an unenjoyable process and despite the hundreds of hours spent learning Photoshop, Aperture, Lightroom and optimising RAW files, I decided that it was time for me to return to film.

 

In 2013 I 're-opened' the darkroom and bought a HORSEMAN 4×5 Optical Bench Modular large form camera. I also decided to give Nikon another chance and bought an F-100 'analogue' camera.

 

As a Photographer

For many years my pictures remained hidden in a drawer until I showed them to my friend Paolo, a photography expert and in my opinion a truly great photographer, who encouraged me to publish them online.

All my photographs are taken in one single shot and never as a sequence. They are uniquely chosen photographs because in the "decisive moment". I mentally 'draw' the picture immediately before I shoot it with a camera.

 

If it is true that photographers must catch reality as it unfolds with a degree of prescience then it would be fair to say that I attempt to foresee emotions evoked by my photographs through the act of documenting.

I always try to be best prepared to catch the fleeting instance of light which is about to be mirrored inside my lens. I strive to capture its existence, nuances and perspective but above all I want to seize the emotions carried by each instance of light, to package them and ultimately unfold them for the enjoyment of others.

 

By returning to film I feel that I have time to reflect. I had found that by saving time in the digital domain l would make an inadequate emotional investment. I asked myself if I was more interested in what could be achieved in five minutes or in five hours and found the answer in the long hours spent manually printing from film.

 

Exhibitions

Following my first solo exhibition at Pasha' in Rome in 2011 I was asked to be part of a group exhibition to be held at the Crossroad Gallery in Tokyo from 15th to 20th October 2013.

I am currently preparing two solo exhibitions in Italy with photographs produced exclusively in black and white film and shot with Horsemann 4x5 large format camera and a Nikon F-100 using Rollei Ortho 25 ASA/ISO film.

 

My journey

My photographic journey started without knowing how, where and when I will arrive. As ever, I intend to follow my instinct.