Ferdinando Cantone

I photograph atmospheres.

What interests me is not the perfect frame. I have little use for technical precision as an end in itself, and I keep post production to a minimum. An image corrected into perfection has usually lost the air that made me stop in front of it.

I am not interested in photographing an action. I prefer the moment just before or just after, when the gesture is not there to be read and something quieter is left in its place. That empty space is where contemplation begins, and I would rather leave it open than fill it.

My subjects almost always appear in isolation, but they are not the subject. What I am looking at is the environment, and the relation between a person and the space that contains them. Sometimes that space is indifferent. Sometimes it is the only thing the figure is speaking to.

My eye was trained on cinema, not on photography as a language. I think in terms of duration rather than instant, of the shot that stays on after the figure has left the frame. This is probably why my images tend toward stillness, and why I trust silence more than incident.

I do not explain what my photographs mean. That is built by whoever is looking.

Bachelor degree