Temporary exhibits

When I started photographing landscapes the main intent was to reproduce in the best way the scenario I was looking at; with the passage of time I realized that many photos, although they had been taken after a careful choice of the most suitable conditions and with great attention to technique and composition, were still too unbalanced towards a reproduction of what was in front of me and did not adequately express what my feeling was, both in relation to my moods and relative to that moment and place.

I therefore started to change my photographic language and consequently the way of photographing, trying to make sure that my photos were not just simple representations of beautiful places, but metaphors of experiences and emotions; this in order not to bring the observer to see the subject of the image anymore but to ask himself what he sees in that image. Often I find myself in beautiful places, perhaps with beautiful atmospheres, admiring the extraordinary beauties of nature in front of me and, however, considering those situations that are photographically unsatisfactory since I realize that if I took a photo it would result in an image that would be nothing else. It would be only superficial beauty. That photograph wouldn’t say anything about how I am seeing that landscape and experiencing that moment, much less about myself. That photograph wouldn’t say anything about how I am seeing that landscape and experiencing that moment, much less about myself. That photograph wouldn’t say anything about how I am seeing that landscape and experiencing that moment, much less about myself. For my photographs, therefore, I often choose to focus on details, glimpses, compositions that do not immediately identify the place, even when it comes from places known for the fantastic landscapes they offer; I often prefer to shoot in lesser known places, less traveled, even considered at all “beautiful” in the strict sense.

Of course it is not obvious that the observer captures the meaning of some of my photographs, in particular the most intimate and introspective ones, perhaps he prefers some of my more classic images; at the beginning I found it difficult to accept that observers were much more affected by classic landscape shots than by more personal and intimate shots, but then I realized that even the observer may not immediately understand this language (after all “photography” really means this: writing with light). But just as you can learn a new spoken / written language you can try to understand a new language, that of the photographer, still unknown. On the contrary, it is not even unusual for the observer to find “his”, personal meaning in my photographs; when this happens it is even more gratifying because it means that that photograph speaks a universal language, like a song or a music, to which each of us associates our own emotions.

Many of the photographs were taken on very cloudy and rainy days, others on sunny days, situations that photographers usually avoid, but I think they both represent sides of my personality: those with the darkest atmosphere express my most secret side and less known while the others reflect the more easily visible side of me.

Diego Buono approached photography as a child following in his father’s footsteps, from which he draws the first rudiments and then, growing, refine the technique with passion and experimentation; his approach is, from the beginning, dictated by the search for the uncontaminated, pure, unaltered and unalterable image: for this reason it remains faithful over time to the film, because it is capable of restoring the truth of things without retouching or manipulation.The search for the uncontaminated also fascinates him in the choice of his subjects, which become “visions” of nature in its most authentic beauty, “cutouts” of an original world that placidly lives and usually hides from the eye of a common observer; he travels to all continents in search of his subjects without however disdaining Italian landscapes. His photos are characterized by strong graphic elements and a minimalist approach in the choice of subjects; the choice of format is also aimed at accentuating these aspects and the format, often square, is therefore chosen from time to time in order to enhance them.

His black & white images, always from 6x6cm format films, are printed in the darkroom according to traditional techniques.

His photos have been published several times in the Hasselbad Bulletin, the monthly online publication of the prestigious camera manufacturer.