Paolo Ricca
Italy | B. 1977
The photographer and the storyteller are inseparable. One explains the other, they are part of the same creative gem. When reality is the ground, the result is a work populated with people. Paolo Ricca likes to gather "fragments of everyday life". In his "zoom" on human experience, he pays particular attention to activities and costumes from the past, "so close to our future".
Born in Rome, where he lives, Paolo Ricca is a freelance photographer. He dedicates himself mainly to street and documental photography, developing projects with a social and anthropological facet. In all his works, he reveals the colors of the "art of living", a process of humble, persistence and resistance: in the vortex of globalization, there are worthwhile causes.
Photo by Paolo Ricca
INTERVIEW
PEOPLE WHO INSPIRE
How was your passion for photography born?
Photography passion has coming with my first childhood memories, when I was twenty years old. As a child I drew and painted a lot, but was often unable to express my creativity the way I really wanted to. Even without knowing it, red, green and blue have always influenced the mood of my days. With photography I discovered a completely unique way of representing emotions through color.
What moves you most as a photographer?
Basically, I believe the world is still a place full of good people. For this reason, as a photographer, I am attracted by the determination of the human being, by the people who work every day to build something healthy and positive. My projects are mainly focused on this, on the values of hard work.
"The poetry of primary colors" was awarded at the IN COLORS PROJECT - React! Do you want to highlight something about the project it belongs to?
This photo is the cover of a long-term project, "Il Sudore della terra" [The sweat of the earth]. Bringing the lens closer to the people who live and deeply respect the land, I dive into the memory of my childhood weekends on my grandfather's small property.
Today, as in those intense moments of childhood, in the hardness of the fields I rediscover marked faces and small wrinkles, passion and sacrifices. The bitter cold, the burning sun, the humidity that clings to clothes and penetrates to the bone.
The sweat of the earth... A value that deserves respect, that sometimes disappoints, that gives tears of fatigue, but always restores the smile, that gives immense satisfaction.
The project revolves around the admiration for this metaphor, and the poetry of primary colors frames the portrait close to an urban texture always current and intense, sometimes rough, but for this reason even more authentic.
CREDENTIALS
Semi-finalist, URBAN PHOTO AWARDS (Street Category)
Semi-finalist, URBAN PHOTO AWARDS (Book Category)
2022
Honorable mention, In Colors Project – REACT! by Lumicroma, Portugal
Winner, EYESHOOT MAGAZINE (People at work hashtag challenge)
Winner, NEA MAGAZINE (Weekly selection)
In Colors Project – REACT! by Lumicroma, Portugal
2021
TERRITORY MUSEUM OF Cormòns , Italy
TRIESTE PHOTO DAYS, Italy
Published, WOW (Worlds Of Women, Book, Portfolio Selection)
Published, WITNESSJOURNAL MAGAZINE (Reportage Category)
Published, PERIMETRO MAGAZINE (Reportage Category)
Featured, LENS CULTURE ART PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS (Competition Gallery)
Featured, THESTREETROVER MAGAZINE (Artist Interview)
2021
Published, FOTOCULT MAGAZINE (October issue, Top Shoot)
Related Exhibitions
IN COLORS PROJECT | REACT!
The broadness ... Ler Mais
The broadness to which the theme is open is represented in this set of 50 artworks by photographers from 22 nationalities. React! to what, from what perspective? The possibility of endless interpretations is mirrored in an exhibition in which the reaction is as much in the photographed "scene" itself as in the impression of the person who photographed it, and also, and always, in the eye of the person who appreciates the photograph.
In this realm, there is the image of time and place, of many places and many qualities of time. There is the beauty of moments, spaces, cultures and traditions. There is a whole scale of emotions. There is the poetry of landscapes and the destruction wrought by war. There is fantasy in improbable scenarios. There are global concerns, personal instances. Sometimes the weight of existence; sometimes the lightness of laughter in the face of death.
There remains, still, the certainty of a kaleidoscopic world, in permanent change, so that stories repeat themselves. Because man repeats himself. The continuity of life is also maintained. It is in the faces of many. It is in the colors. It is in the light of black and white. It is in the instinct. In the will. In what is lost, in what is conquered. Ler Menos
See Exhibition