Scanno Boy and The Dancing Monks – these images by Mario Giacomelli imprinted on my memory as photographs made by a genius.  His landscapes I discovered later just confirmed that. Genius.

Black and white images, stark contrasts, very minimal, expressive shapes and lines… Giacomelli’s photography resembles graphic art, perfectly composed and executed. His style is unique, and for that reason I think it was for his and our best fortune that he was a self-taught photographer.

“Photography is not difficult — as long as you have something to say.” – Mario Giacomelli

Giacomelli was an artist, a humanist, deeply caring of the world around him. His series – photo essays – are very poetic, in a way that he finds poetry already existing in humble daily life, captures it, enhances it with a few (photo)graphic lines and steps away.  Giacomelli’s work is very theatrical, there is a certain sense of distance – I personally feel it that way – as if he presents scene after scene, puts it up on stage, for us to see, while he himself is in the audience somewhere, mixed in a crowd.

Anyway, my limited English is too limited to describe Mario Giacomelli’s effect on my existence as a photographer. I can only say that I wished many times I lived in his world – nature, villages, people – so I could photograph like him. Naive, I know. It takes a genius to make genius photography, not a place or a camera.

Notes to myself : don’t be afraid of high contrast or reducing the depth.