Interview with photographer Santolo Felaco

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Interview with photographer Santolo Felaco

December 1st, 2015 by fstop

F-Stop Magazine: How did you first become involved in photography and what led to you working in this medium as an artist?

Santolo Felaco: I became interested to photography casually. Photography for me is the most immediate and powerful medium to express my ideas.

F-Stop: The “Telling Stories” issue of F-Stop Magazine includes images from your project “Elsewhere”, can you tell us about this project? What led to this project?

SF: I started the Elsewhere project in November 2014 and it is ongoing. The work started as a collective project during the reportage master of Fausto Podavini and after the end of the master program I decided to continue it individually. This work is about adolescence. The protagonists are young people living a part of their lives in the “elsewhere” of a therapeutic rehabilitation center.

I started this project because I wanted to know this reality and to understand how to live in these places. My fixer in the first part of the project was a classmate who works in the center. The therapeutic rehabilitation centers are often stigmatized and I felt the need to understand more about this world and explore it.

F-Stop: Can you discuss your process for making these images or your creative process more generally?

SF: Elsewhere is a documentary photography project, so I’m using a modern photographic language effective to develop my intent. The creative process is simple, beginning with the study of reality to document. Then I want to know the people I photograph, I talk to them, I try to figure out who they are, and it is fitting that they know me. The photos are all taken with ambient light and post production is minimal. The photograph must be in the service of these adolescents and not the other way around.

F-Stop: How do you choose what or who to photograph, what are you looking to capture?

I try to report the state of mind, the atmosphere of these young lives, that I like to call “suspension”. It is the key element of the essay. I try to see through wounds and cries of anger, searching to express something stronger.
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F-Stop: What do you hope people see or feel or perhaps learn when they look at your photographs?

I hope people can look as I do, and see something that belongs to us and that is hidden in gazes, gestures, details of these adolescents.

F-Stop: Do you have a favorite image in this series? If so, which one and why is it the image that speaks to you most?

My favourite image is the number two (the photo with girl on red background above). It is for me very evocative, it represents the suspension theme the best.

F-Stop: Are you working on any other projects currently?

Yes I am, I working on other projects. One of these is about the Live Action Role-Playing, it is a form of role-playing in which participants physically interpret the characters with their own act, representing the fictitious situations in real space around them . In this project, I’m trying to represent the spirit imaginative that is presented in this reality.

F-Stop: What photographers or other artists inspire you?

My favorite photographers are Luigi Ghirri and Mimmo Jodice.

To see more of Santolo Felaco’s work: www.santolofelaco.com

Location: Online Type: Featured Photographer, Interview

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