Mario Giacomelli

Mario Giacomelli (1925-2000) is the photographer I never had the courage to be. His work exudes extremes of passion and flamboyance. He used to scratch his negatives intentionally, wipe the dust off them with his fingers in order to transfer a bit of himself onto them and he would touch his prints up with a blue ball point pen – no two were identical. He worked with the mindset of a passionate, flamboyant artist rather than a meticulous precise photographer. He didn’t care that the medium he was using to express himself was photography, all that mattered was that he was expressing himself.

Giacomelli trained as a typographer and came to photography relatively late, but he was also a poet and, later in life a painter. His images are raw and grainy and abstract, in many ways similar to Francis Bacon’s paintings in intensity. His portraits looked like landscapes and his landscapes like portraits. His collections had titles such as I Have No Hands Caressing My Face (Io non ho mani che mi accarezzino il volto), A Tale, Towards Possible Inner Meanings (Favola, verso possibili significati interiori), My head is full, mamma (Ho la testa piena, mamma) and Happiness achieved, I walk (Felicità raggiunta, si cammina). His work exudes a passion and intensity that leaves me breathless.

I cannot recommend his work enough. His official website is well worth a visit and Phaidon’s beautiful book is definitely worth buying if you are interested.

Latest

Swarm

It was as simple as ‘get to the top of Finland and turn left’.  At least that is

Blink and you’ll miss it

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Under the Stars in Madagascar

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Viewpoints

The Rooftop Collective exhibition edition VI Tempus Fugit. So they say. Here we are again, another Rooftop Collective

Memories

Zen and the Art of Midge Maintenance

Scotland is famous for many wonderful things… Scotland is also famous for it’s midges. I had, of course,

Blizzards in the Lake District

January 2010. New Years resolutions and a new found determination to drown myself in my photography again turned

Brown carpets and rotating Y-fronts

Arrival in India 13-03-11: An airport is an airport is an airport. And Delhi airport is an airport.

Dancers in the mist

Step after step we climb the steep mountain path, focusing, meditating, concentrating. The rain dripping through the trees

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Q&A with the London Alternative Photography Collective

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It always astonishes me how much influence a curator can have on an exhibition. I effectively curate my

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Photographing Photographs

Swept along by Katrina Aleksa of Predella House: I’m sat, once again, in a taxi, frames stacked up