Honorable Mention
SWEET GOLD
DESCRIPTION
There are rare tribes in Nepal that have been haunting honey from Himalayan cliffs for centuries. A tradition that's carried on for generations. Wrapped in a tornado of angry giant bees, hanging with bare hands to a bamboo rope hundreds of meters high, these people risk their lives to collect the precious spring ‘red honey’, famous for its medicinal, aphrodisiac and hallucinogenic properties. AUTHOR
I was born in 1975 in a small town in the Italian Alps. From a young age I felt inside me the desire to tell. Although it is difficult to express, I think that the photograph represents my way of speaking. The camera began to walk by my side towards my long journey of discovery from the age of 30th and street photography is definitely the top I have reached after this long journey.Despite my admiration for the life and work of many artists like Sebastiao Salgado, Feyzullah Tunç, Jean Gaumy and Brent Stirton, I don’t like to say that I feel inspired by their works. Definitely, to grow by himself, without the influence of schools, courses and lessons has slowed down the process of technical knowledge, but I’m glad I learned my own way of seeing and to have been formed and shaped by the environment and the people who surrounded me in my travels. What I try to do through my language is to capture the sense of what I breathe and touch with my hands. Not only in appearance but also, and especially, in the essence, trying to express nuances and subtleties contained in a single frame. I think that’s part of my personality and my work fully expresses what I am. My story, my soul.
During my long trips I had the good fortune to meet great people and from each one of them I absorbed something: happiness, joy, passions, and sometimes even anger, sadness and shame. Emotions that sometimes were like punches in the stomach that took my breath away. Reproduce all these different moods into images is to evoke an emotion in someone else. Stop people and make them think. Photography is a fantastic storytelling medium. Just ask yourself what story you want