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September 12, 2011
Paolo Ventura, an artist and photographer, is a creator of sophisticated sets that he then photographs in ways that are haunting. In this video he talks about Winter Stories. He's an image-maker before he is a photographer.
His dioramas, which evoke a strange and often imaginary past, are conceived and created on two very ordinary tables at his Brooklyn studio. He starts with notes or rough sketches of a particular scenario he has imagined. Once the concept is established, he then builds the set.
The detail is extraordinary, from the folds in the clothes of the little figures, to the artfully arranged props, to the precise way the light and shadow play out in his pictures. He uses foam board, cardboard, plastic, and wood — basically, anything that he can get hold of.
Paolo Ventura, untitled, Winter Stories
Once the set is completed, Ventura takes Polaroids to use as a reference for minor adjustments. He then shoots with a Pentax 6x7 camera from a fixed position, using only natural daylight, preferring to capture the scene on slightly overcast days
Ventura's narratives are set in a small fictional Tuscan village in the early 1950’s. He invents an imaginative series of photographs depicting scenes from the memory banks of an old circus performer as he looks back on his life. What the performer revisits are not moments of great drama, but rather fleetingly recalled glimpses of an everyday life, "images that he had thought to have never seen, quick moments he unknowingly observed as he raised his eyes to the clock hung at the corner of the block.
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Ventura's “Winter Stories,” and “War Souvenir” series—can be compared to the output of contemporary photographers like Jeff Wall and Thomas Demand, who have used the photography medium to stage or recreate reality—not document it.