“I use to take photos because psychotherapy is too expensive” by Manuela Frattini
I take inspiration from many sources starting from the great pioneer photographers of surrealism such as Man Ray, from cinematic photography, Manga and all those forms of art that have accompanied me throughout my life, including the street.
My concept photography is a bit like a journey in my shadow zone.
In many of these photos, I am the subject and it is the representation and elaboration of emotions, situations of that precise moment. Photography for me is a sort of therapy for the soul, it is a constant part of my life, it’s comparable to all forms of survival such as breathing, sleeping, etc.
I realize it’s not a glossy and glamorous kind of photography, I love to “dirty the images” using a texture with a lot of grain. I often use photographic techniques such as ICM (intentional movement camera) and long exposure, working a lot on the areas of light and shadow trying to give depth to the shot to make it seem somewhere between dream and reality a sorta of dark fairy tale.
I love walking the streets and looking at people, digging into emotions, capturing that thought, that moment, it is no coincidence that in the portraits the attention is especially focused into the eyes and how they are speaking to what they are expressing from their innermost part.
Every job for me becomes a way to exorcise ancestral fears and elaborate emotions that derive from them.
