Featured Artist: Carlotta Valente

Artist: Carlotta Valente

Location: Rome, Italy

Portfolio: www.controluce.paspartout.com

Instagram: @carlotta_controluce

Featured series: 'Vorelli'EndFragment

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Vorrei, 2017, silver gelatin prints.

Yours is a jealous shadow:

Dense, insistent.

Sometimes I see it filling your lungs like salted water.

We are both missing the air.

Let me illuminate you at every awakening with every click in which silver captures you serene.

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SFUK: Hi Carlotta, tell us a little about yourself and your background in photography.

CV: My first approach to photography was in high school and since then I’ve always tried my best to make it my profession. Now I work in the darkroom of a photography school in Rome and I still find it difficult to contain the enthusiasm with which I keep on learning about analogue photography.

SFUK: Your work is primarily shot with black and white film, can you tell us what makes you choose this instead of shooting in colour?

CV: It wasn’t a conscious choice at all. Ever since my first digital camera I developed a strong preference for black and white. When I discovered film, the choice was already taken, probably because I’m a person who speaks a lot through metaphors, and the way I have to be evocative by using a visual language as photography is monochromatic and ranges from 0 to X (ten).

SFUK: Being based in Rome, how accessible is film as a photographic medium? Do you find your location influences the style of your photography?

CV: No, at least not my city in particular. There are some places in here whose are very meaningful to me and where I keep coming back to take photos year after year , but often the reason is because I have a “pending image” that I cannot compare to my mental shoot, but this places are not just in Rome.Thankfully - to Ars Imago- films are easily available here in Rome.

SFUK: There seems to be a recurring presence of light and form in your work, how do you approach your shoots, do you have something in mind before you begin?

CV: Light is the instinctive reason of my photos: there is a certain kind of light that I perceive with a different intensity, which makes me happy, motivates me and brings me to shoot that certain picture.However if I focus on the realization of a project I often run the risk of creating lots of superfluous elements and to lose the original idea or emotion: I draw my layouts and I recreate them from paper to film, losing spontaneity.So I’m trying to work on planning as little as possible before and during the shooting phase and to expose myself more, in the most honest way possible.

SFUK: Finally, do you have any plans for creating work in the near future? What can we look out for?

CV: I would like to continue two projects I’ve started in March: “Hikobae” and “Vorrei” and to improve my techniques and activity as a darkroom printer, in order to stay loyal with the joy of shooting instinctively and the need to work in a controlled and thoughtful way.

Keep up to date with Carlotta's work at www.controluce.paspartout.com and be sure to follow her on Instagram @carlotta_controluce

Thank you.

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