Ritrovarsi negli altri quando non ritrovi te stesso

A photographical and illustrated research, and a tribute to few important ones.

Because when you lose yourself, sometimes you find the way back only through someone else.

Davide

Giulia

Vittoria

Martina&Luka

Serena

Davide is not only my best friend, he is the person I think about everytime I hear the expression “soulmate”. He is my other half, the one that will always understand me, and our intimacy goes beyond friendship and beyond love. That’s why I have decided for him to take a picture on his bed, which we shared a million times: the pose, with his body wrapped in itself, but next to me, is representative of the bond we share, in which we don’t necessary need to communicate through words, as our closeness goes beyond them.

Giulia has been the first friend I have ever had, a sister before I had one, and an adventure companion for twentytwo years. She lays on an invisible table, she is unhappy: the joy and the freedom of our beautiful childhood are gone, replaced by anxiety, fear and by the difficulties you face when you grow up; and I am just on the other side of the table, in her same situation. In this case, her presence is not only full of memories from the past, but also full of hope and full of shared experiences in a less easy present.

The most recent addition to my special people is Serena, who has been in our house, as my uncle’s girlfriend, for more than five years, but that I got to know only in the past months, and I am so glad I did. She is posing against a wall and not looking at the camera, not because she is uninterested but because she is shy and has a very introvert nature. As she said about me, “she is an elected, deep soul”. Her photos are the only ones in which I am in a slightly different position, and with the corner of my eye I am trying to reach out for her, exactly as I do in life. Her opinion to me matters more than thousands of others, and I know I will always find the comfort I am looking for in her.

Vittoria, another childhood friend and another story. After losing contact for years, while walking on different paths, she came back into my life, and it is weird and curious that I don’t even remember how. Probably with the same spirit of her pose: spontaneous, a bit funny, and ready to catch me if I fall from behind her. She is, like Giulia, full of memories and she is a positive, always present support: a physical one in the photos, in which our backs and heads are almost connected and touching; and a mental and emotional one every day and every moment.

At the end, there is my sister Martina, which appears in a pair (or couple) with her boyfriend Luka. Words would be too much in this case, not only because she is actually part of my family, but because both of them together are my definition of family. They are there, sometimes you may feel like they have other plans, or a date, or anything, but the reality is that they are there, for me and forever. Theis intimacy is so clear in real life that I didn’t want to break it in the photos, so the only appearance I do in their shots is while I pose quietly on top of their touching heads, almost contemplating such an unique bond, that is exclusive but welcoming at the same time.

The editing process of this project was relatively easy if we consider the software used (Photoshop) and the steps it actually took me to come out with the final images.

After receiving the shots from the people included in the project, I simply layered the subjects using Photoshop’s masking function, and I add a white plain background to them. I had to readjust the edges of the figures more than once, and even at the end, I wasn't completely satisfied with the results as some of the shots were quite bad quality. Following this step, I repeated the same process with the photos I took of myself, which were shoot in front of a green screen, and then I started trying to collage the images together in order to achieve my initial idea of five symmetrical compositions.

You can find the documentation and the progress with the editing above, in the galleries, and below, with the collages and the final photographs.