| Federico Torra |
If you could be anything right now, what would you be?
As a child, I was always wondering how would have been seeing the world with the eyes of a bird who can easily change its point of view in relation to the height of its flight.
We live bound tho the ground and for this reason our way of looking and representing reality is influenced by a viewpoint that remains constant trough all our life.
I consider birds as contemplative animals; when you lift up your sight you can see one of them standing on a roof or on a branch looking around, ready to suddenly fly away and you cannot say where.
What book are you reading?
I’m reading the book “A Lisbona con Antonio Tabucchi. Una guida” by Lorenzo Pini. I bought it after I recently came back from Lisbon. It might seems to be strange to have bought a guide after coming back from a trip, but I’d like the sensations I had of this city would remain even after my return home and for this reason I’d say that sometimes literature is better than photography.
What photographer is currently teaching you something and why?
I feel a little awkward to say it because it is a name that’s very often quoted when someone talks about his influences in photography, but I’ve got to say it and it’s Luigi Ghirri.
Since when I’ve received my first book by Ghirri I was impressed how, in his images, things would seem like being in a rebus: everyday objects, people, familiar landscapes are linked by a mysterious sense, a connection that is not immediately understandable.
By looking at Luigi Ghirri’s work, my eyes are magnetized by the images while I keep myself questioning about the appearance of a reality that I was taking for granted.
From Ghirri I try to learn the complexity of gazing blended with the clarity of representation.
Are you working on a particular project right now? Can you tell us something about it?
Recently I’m focusing on architecture photography: I would like to create a visual database of architectures in their context.
I’d like to be free from the cold and technical architecture photography you can find in specialized magazines and my intention is to put architectures in a dialogue with surroundings, to show their weaknesses with framings and details that reveal their age.
What is your relationship with architecture?
I see architecture as a resting place for the space. In a world that is generally chaotic and of uncertain appearance, I try to look at architectures as moments in which the lines and the light on the surfaces might realize an appearance of tranquillity.
In any kind of architectures, even in the anonymous ones, I’m interested in the fact that they were once built and then left to the flow of time, inhabited and passed through by people leaving their traces.
I’m very fascinated by the sense of permanence that the structures have and I think that all the concrete used in the last 70 years might be as durable as the marble or the travertine used by the Romans.
There’s a lot of white in your pictures: is it just an aesthetic choice or has a more deep meaning for you?
The white in my photographs is a particular light condition by which I try to give brightness to the image. I’m very attracted by the light of the northern and seaside cities that, by striking things, is reflected in every directions and it spreads. I often think about the synesthesia used by Montale “glass air”: a clarity that permit the glaze to go deep in to reality and disclose its ephemeral nature that is in a sense surreal.
website: http://federicotorra.tumblr.com/
