The Magic Of Circus

The story of the Magic of Circus series is actually the story on how I discovered my passion for photography about 12 years ago.

The circus was in fact the subject through which I had the first real flavour of what it takes to accomplish a photographic project …I was in south of France at that time, when I had the opportunity to live one week in a caravan observing circus lifestyle also outside the fantastic show that every night was taking place…and I guess this is the reason why I’m very affectionate to this subject since during this extraordinary experience I realised what is the level of involvement needed for been able to catch emotions and feelings in a photo, instead of just documenting things…

I started to realise somehow that taking good pictures is always a matter of dedication, total involvement and even obsession. Unfortunately at that time I couldn’t really make something worthy out of this experience in terms of pictures, but I did continue to try shooting this subject…and then I arrived to this series which is a step on a wider project on showing circus in my way: the beauty of scenes taking place, the skills of performers, the art involved in creating emotions…but above all the dichotomy between fantasy and reality, verisimilitude and dream, amusement and melancholy, all in the same moment…the magic in a word…let’s say that circus encompasses many of the characteristics I search when I realise a picture, many of the features that I would like my pictures express, briefly capturing and returning back an emotion.

The way I wanted to photograph this circus is the way of suggesting situations almost beyond reality which are able to transport our thoughts in the parallel world of dreams and fairy tales. The suggestive illumination, the smoking effect and the choice of black and white and grainy film definitely help emphasizing this effect of everything dissolving in the dream.