Similarly to scientific research, my approach to photography is driven by curiosity and determination to understand. Living in many different countries helped me to improve my ability to unravel what surrounded me (different cultures, lifestyles, languages,…).
Understanding was actually a necessity that affected the way I take photos. At the same time, making photos helped me to better and faster interpret the main aspects of the new cultures in which I was embedded. Among all the typologies of this discipline, I find documentary photography the most interesting and challenging. I believe that in learning how to show a story, the photographer actually has the possibility to learn a lot about the subject matter of his attention.
I selected a series of photos taken in 2010 representing the harsh life of miners of Potosi in Bolivia. Potosi had a glorious past thanks to the presence of the Cerro Rico, a nearby mountain where a huge amount of silver was found. Today it is harder and harder to dig out this metal, and the miners work in extreme unsafe and unhealthy condition, causing a life expectation of about fourthly years. The luckiest ones, managed to found agencies that bring tourists to visit the mines. In this series, I decided to start from a close up view of the hand of a miner with silver powder, and finish with the panoramic view of the Cerro Rico. In between, I placed photos of the miners at work inside the mines and its close surrounding, symbolically squeezed between the object of their hard work, and the imposing and intimidating presence of the mountain.
