Luca escapes from the everyday world using words and pictures
You discovered your passion for photography pretty late. Is there a specific reason or episode that arouse your interest in this art form and pushed you to experiment with a camera?
Yes, it was during my summer holidays in 2007. I was on vacation with some friends and one of them had a reflex which I started experimenting with. I still remember the first pictures I took : their bodies leaning against some cliffs. It fascinated me immediately, that the camera can give me the possibility to stand aside of what is happening. Somehow it’s like being a novelist who captures the images of the story he is writing. Later on I also understood that it is pretty hard, and therefore also very intriguing and challenging, to interact with the person who is shot and to build some kind of empathic relation with him or her.
…And you also write poems, could you tell us something about that?
It’s kind of a different story compared to photography. I’ve always loved writing. The other day, my mom showed me a poem I wrote when I was 6 or 7 years old. Reading it brought many memories to life. As a child I was hyper-active, but not when I was writing. I needed my quiet time to let out my feelings, my thoughts. When I write poems I recur to a set of words that, unannounced, pop up in my mind–apparently from nowhere, which I then write down and put together like pieces of a puzzle. These poems are something that come to life by chance, they ”happen”.
Your photography and your poetry–are these two art forms you practice somehow linked to each other?
It’s really hard to tell. Nothing is disconnected from the rest, at least not at a level of consciousness. What I can tell you is that my inspirations are the same, for both, they come from everything surrounding me: music, literature – especially French writers from the 19th century-, and the beauty of friendship and silence.
What are you working just now?
Yes, I’m writing a lot lately. Even in the middle of the street. I’m participating in a contest held by a big Italian publishing house, and in order to do that I have to edit and select 50 of my poems. It’s hard! Maybe I should put them online, have my own blog or something, but I think that poetry is something that needs to be treated very carefully.
Here are some of Luca’s works:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lucamaruffa/