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PICTORIAL STORY PARALLEL REALITIES The impact of socioeconomic forces and social norms takes quiet shape in Catia Montagna’s work, where small, seemingly insignificant moments reveal the ephemeral and existential layers of the human condition. February 23, 2024 PICTORIAL STORY photography CATIA MONTAGNA story CATIA MONTAGNA introduction MELANIE MEGGS SHARE Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Catia Montagna is a photographer with a unique perspective on the world around her. With a Ph.D. in Economics and a chair of Economics at the University of Aberdeen, Catia’s background as a social scientist has carved out a distinct place for herself in the world of photography. From the simple act of holding a camera to framing and clicking, each step of the process allows Catia to see and understand the world in a different light. With her camera, Catia explores the impact of socioeconomic factors and social norms on our daily lives, revealing in her photos the subtle poetry of small, insignificant moments that capture the human condition. Born in Italy, Catia splits her time between the United Kingdom and her home country. From a young age, Catia has been drawn to the art of photography. Armed with an old camera and no film, Catia fondly recalls she would wander through the world, capturing moments in her imagination. This passion for photography was mostly a personal pursuit for Catia, and it did not go beyond sharing her photographs with friends and family. However, in the early 2000s, she took a short darkroom course at the Dundee Contemporary Arts Centre, and this opened up new opportunities for her. It not only brought her into contact with other photographers but also gave her the chance to exhibit some of her work in Scotland. This experience later encouraged Catia to share her work on social media and interact more with others who shared her passion for photography, leading to collaborations with other artists and featured in magazines. Catia generously shares with us her ongoing project, comprised of photographs taken at different times and in various locations around the world. This collection does not have a specific documentary purpose but rather serves as a visual reflection of her personal growth and artistic evolution. As we engage with her story and the accompanying photographs, we are invited to witness Catia’s perspective, one that captures the complexity of the world and the lived experiences of humanity with all its complexities and beauties. “I consider consumerism as a form of fascism worse than the classical one...A form of fascism capable of homogenising societies by depriving of reality the different lifestyles.” - Pier Paolo Pasolini _ The street is alive and speaks of our existence. When I photograph the street, I like to capture simple moments of everyday life probably immediately forgotten by those who lived them. I am drawn to gestures, expressions, and atmospheres that, in movement or in stillness, reflect nuances of life that reveal existential tensions and what is universal about the human condition. Wandering around our cities, in the western world and beyond, one cannot fail to perceive, through the filters of the specificities of time and place, how the consumeristic nature of our societies commodifies our daily experiences and acts as a force towards the homogenisation of our needs and of the lifestyles we strive to achieve. Pasolini called it the ‘destructive homologation’ of consumerism. This homologation hinges on a dichotomy between two parallel worlds: the ‘real’ one of ‘normal’ people going about their lives and the artificial one that the images and messages we are bombarded with everyday are designed to draw us into. By offering the alluring suggestion of a comforting escape from our ‘normal’, these images generate ever increasing material needs. But crucially, they also propose unattainable role models – particularly, but not exclusively, for women. Palpable is then the contrast between our real lives and the idealised lives of this glossy other world we are invited to crave for and that has the power to make our normality, and our humanity look so imperfect. © Catia Montagna © Catia Montagna © Catia Montagna © Catia Montagna © Catia Montagna © Catia Montagna © Catia Montagna © Catia Montagna © Catia Montagna © Catia Montagna © Catia Montagna As we come to the end of our journey through Catia Montagna’s work, we are reminded of how photography captures the essence of our existence in all its complexities. Catia invites us to reflect on the impact of societal norms and consumerism on our daily lives, while also celebrating the beauty and poetry found in small, seemingly insignificant moments. As we continue to navigate through a world full of contradictions, Catia’s unique perspective reminds us to pause and appreciate the simple yet profound moments that make us human. With her ongoing projects and collaborations, Catia continues to inspire us to see the world from a different perspective and embrace the imperfections that make us who we are. She is currently working with award-winning poet Andy Jackson on a photo-poetry book based on her photographs. Have a look at her portfolio and follow her links for the next chapter in Catia's journey and the unique perspectives she will undoubtedly capture. view Catia's portfolio Website >>> Instagram >>> The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the text belong solely to the author/s, and are not necessarily shared by The Pictorial List and the team. read more stories >>> THE LIFE WITHIN THE MOUNTAIN Ten years after first seeing Larung Gar, Jing Wei returns to a changed mountain, finding continuity in faith, memory and the lives held within it. PROSCENIUM GHOSTS Said Manseur honors these young actors, their courage, and the unseen work they give to keep theatre alive against the odds. REGINA: BOARDING SCHOOL LIFE AND DREAMS A boarding school room becomes the frame for Cleopatra Joint’s portrait of ambition, instability, and a young woman’s search for freedom. LIFE ALONG THE RIVER Along the Hooghly, Shubhodeep Roy photographs Kolkata through faith, labour and memory, revealing a city shaped by water, inheritance and shared life. A HOME OF MEMORIES AND THE PRESENT Davide Santangelo returns to his family home by moonlight, tracing how absence, memory, and love continue to live within place, objects, and atmosphere after loss. THE PULL OF THE EARTH This is more than a record of rural Bengal. It looks at the bond between Sayan Biswas and the place that shaped him, even after distance has changed that relationship. ARE THOSE WINDS Along Istanbul’s northern edge, Ci Demi photographs the last water buffalo herders as they keep working, remembering, and staying put while the city closes in. COLORS OF HÜZÜN Through fragments and gestures, Pedro Vidal traces Istanbul as shared melancholy lingers in everyday life, the city unfolding slowly and refusing to settle into a single, definitive understanding. OUT OF PLAY An exploration of abandoned interiors in which Marco Lugli examines how objects, light, and space carry memory beyond human presence, establishing absence as a condition of material continuity rather than loss. REIMAGINING TALIESIN Form gives way to flux in Amy Newton-McConnel’s photographs, where architecture unfolds as a field of shifting relations and perception moves with light, geometry, and time. WHERE THE MUSIC BEGINS Before the strings, Jeevan Akash Jayavarthanan leaves the movement of the street for the rhythm of the workshop, where time holds, hands work, and each moment forms what will later be heard. LAND, LABOR, AND THE GOLDEN FIBER In West Bengal’s jute fields, Rajesh Dhar examines the systems of land and labor, tracing how a single material sustains communities and informs a changing ecological future. WITH GRATITUDE AND DEVOTION A quiet and intimate account of devotion in Zaraza, Venezuela, Rafael Ayala Páez reflects on faith, memory, and community through photographs and words that honor the enduring power of small gestures. SILVER AND BREATH Within this fragile space between looking and being seen, Eva Christina Nielsen has developed a practice that is both restrained and deeply attentive. RUPTURE REPAIR REMNANT In this reflection on rupture, Donna Bassin invites us to consider how grief settles into the body and the image, and how the slow work of witnessing becomes a form of repair. DELTA DUSK John Agather weaves image and text into a single current, tracing how music, memory, and daily life continue to move through the Mississippi Delta. SILENT BEAUTY Tamara Quadrelli photographs the world by slowing down inside it. There is no rush to explain what we are seeing. The pleasure comes from staying with it. SOLITUDE UNDER A TECHNIFIED SUN Tracing the space between movement and stillness, Héctor Morón reveals a city that persists as human presence slips by. 4320 MINUTES WITHOUT COLOR Moving between photography and narration, Mohammed Nahi traces a period in which sight could no longer be assumed as reliable, and attention shifted toward memory and duration. THE PAINTED VILLAGE OF LABANDHAR Anjan Ghosh’s photographs carry us to Labandhar, where painting becomes language, tradition stays present, and art grows through shared ground. ORDINARY GRIEF What endures when everything else is uncertain? Through photography, Parisa Azadi asks us to see Iran not as story, but as feeling. THE EVERYMAN Eva Mallis uncovers the quiet strength of overlooked lives, capturing everyday encounters in Mumbai’s industrial districts as intimate portraits of labor and resilience. IN BETWEEN LIFE AND AFTER In Cairo’s City of the Dead, families carve out ordinary lives among centuries of tombs — Paola Ferrarotti traces the fragile line between memory and survival. UNFIGURED Nasos Karabelas transforms the human body into a site of emotional flux — where perception fractures and inner states become visible form. VISIONS OF ICELAND FROM ABOVE Massimo Lupidi takes flight above Iceland — capturing nature’s abstract brushstrokes where land, water, and sky blur into poetic visions beyond the ordinary eye.

I am a Slovak self-taught photographer based between Bratislava and Vienna. My approach is characterised by minimalism and geometric compositions with the human element occurring unexpectedly. Faceless figures seem consumed by architectural forms and styles. Following my visual instinct, I endeavour to attain unusual compositions of familiar places and capture interactions between people and surfaces. A visual connection between unsuspecting subjects and urban spaces transforms random fleeting moments of strangers on the street into something abstract and sculptural. My work is undoubtedly influenced by the atmosphere of my hometown Bratislava. The motifs of bridges, cranes, lifeless roofs and the stairs seemingly leading to nowhere dominate my photographic language. In the cities that I know intimately, I predominantly shoot in black and white. Conversely, when traveling and exploring new places, I often switch to colour. RADOVAN BARAN I am a Slovak self-taught photographer based between Bratislava and Vienna. My approach is characterised by minimalism and geometric compositions with the human element occurring unexpectedly. Faceless figures seem consumed by architectural forms and styles. Following my visual instinct, I endeavour to attain unusual compositions of familiar places and capture interactions between people and surfaces. A visual connection between unsuspecting subjects and urban spaces transforms random fleeting moments of strangers on the street into something abstract and sculptural. My work is undoubtedly influenced by the atmosphere of my hometown Bratislava. The motifs of bridges, cranes, lifeless roofs and the stairs seemingly leading to nowhere dominate my photographic language. In the cities that I know intimately, I predominantly shoot in black and white. Conversely, when traveling and exploring new places, I often switch to colour. LOCATION Bratislava SLOVAKIA CAMERA/S Fujifilm X100V, Fujifilm x70, Nikon D7500 @STREETESCAPIST FEATURES // Ostalgie

I am a different style photographer, connecting with what I have seen and what I have lived....To live abroad, learning new languages, traditions, discovering other beliefs, religions, lifestyle....Witnessing other's life; Being a watcher, but also feeling. From my personal experiences, I explore feelings and matters, existence basic issues : body, identity, human nature, time passing, death. I show what I see, or play with different process. My pictures are a blend of portrait, nude, documentary or landscape. My projects are more and more brought to life through hand-made unique art books or different plastic art technique; I upcycle, make, create, mixing matter to my visual work. MAGDÉLEINE FERRU I am a different style photographer, connecting with what I have seen and what I have lived....To live abroad, learning new languages, traditions, discovering other beliefs, religions, lifestyle....Witnessing other's life; Being a watcher, but also feeling. From my personal experiences, I explore feelings and matters, existence basic issues : body, identity, human nature, time passing, death. I show what I see, or play with different process. My pictures are a blend of portrait, nude, documentary or landscape. My projects are more and more brought to life through hand-made unique art books or different plastic art technique; I upcycle, make, create, mixing matter to my visual work. LOCATION Nouvelle-Aquitaine, FRANCE CAMERA/S Nikon D7200 WEBSITE http://www.justmagd.com/ @JUSTMAGD FEATURES // Abysses

I am Delhi based street and fine arts photographer. I am the only person in my family who is into photography and art . I love to connect to the human behaviour by using my skills and composition. ABHAY PATEL I am Delhi based street and fine arts photographer. I am the only person in my family who is into photography and art . I love to connect to the human behaviour by using my skills and composition. LOCATION Delhi INDIA CAMERA/S Nikon D5600 @_PRIN_PHOTOGRAPHY FEATURES // Widows' Holi

EXPLORING OLD DELHI The streets of Old Delhi provide countless motifs for Abhishek Singh's photographic exploration, finding unique situations in everyday life. EXPLORING OLD DELHI October 19, 2020 INTERVIEW PHOTOGRAPHY Abhishek Singh INTERVIEW Karin Svadlenak Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link SHARE Abhishek Singh has a big passion for photography. He was born and raised in India, in the small town of Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh, and now lives in Delhi. Trained as an electronics and communication engineer, he became interested in digital cameras during his university years. His drive towards photography became so urgent that he even sold his scooter to get himself a digital camera, and he joined a professional photography group to pursue his passion. The streets of Old Delhi provide countless motifs for his photographic exploration. Abhishek's goal is to show people's working lives and daily routines, finding unique situations in everyday life. Their livelihood, how they survive, and their emotion and based on their daily life, Abhishek's want to include some unique elements which we can get on the spot. He shared with us his vibrant images of life in his home country. I will not leave until you break (जबतक तोडेंगे नहीं तबतक छोडेगें नही ) Majhi - the Mountain Man “I was born in a small town of Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh in a farmer family. My strings are directly attached with the mud of my village. I did not have a silver spoon when I came to this life on earth, but I have the immense will to soar on the highest of the peaks in the field of photography.” IN CONVERSATION WITH ABHISHEK SINGH THE PICTORIAL LIST: Abhishek, please tell us about how you became interested in photography. ABHISHEK SINGH: I am highly grateful to my parents for bringing me up and providing me with good moral and formal education against all the extreme conditions in the family. I have done my graduation in B.Tech (Electronics & Communication), and technical knowledge pushed me towards the world of digital cameras. The spark towards digital photography was ignited then, but I was not able to fully justify my passion because of family liabilities. As my family is not very well off financially, I had to earn my bread and butter, but the spark of photography which was kindling in my heart kept me pushing towards this wonderful world of my interest and passion. Due to a shortage of funds I was shooting with an analogue camera, and it was killing me from inside. I knew I had to buy a good DSLR camera to fulfil my dreams. This left me sleepless for several nights. I had to sell my scooter to buy a digital camera. From January 2016 onward I joined a professional group to pursue my dreams. After immense endeavours and by the grace of God and blessings of my parents I was able to climb towards my goal. I was married to Raj Laxmi in 2017, my beloved wife who has supported me in every step and every bit, through thick and thin to achieve my goal in photography. She is playing a very significant and concrete solid role to pursue my dreams in photojournalism. We both are trying really hard to take my dreams to touch the success sky. TPL: Tell us a bit more about photographing on the streets of Delhi: What are some of your most influential moments that you have captured? How has COVID-19 affected your city, the people and your photography? AS: Old Delhi (Chandani Chowk) is my favourite place, where I see people doing their work. They are early birds here. On the street of Old Delhi we can get photographs related to our daily life. There are so many vegetable, spice, flower vendors there. That area is very unique for photography because their buildings are two hundred years old, it has a heritage status. For me one of the most important images I captured there was the relationship between a dog and a man. He was feeding his ill dog as if he were feeding his son. It shows that still there is humanity in our India among people. Covid-19 has affected many things. People were laid off from their jobs due to this, it started financial problems in their lives. So many people have left here because they didn't have anything to survive on, so they had to move from here. It has also affected photography, we are not able to go outside, and everything is online here. Now we are not able to focus on practice, we are putting the focus on theory, but practice is more important than theory. But one thing is also good in this pandemic situation: It has impacted positively on our environment becoming cleaner. TPL: Where do you find your inspiration? AS: I find my inspiration in my family, they believe in me. I get inspiration from their happiness. TPL: Do you prefer to shoot alone or with friends? AS: Most of the time I prefer to shoot alone. TPL: Who are your favourite artists and photographers? AS: My technical field ignited the spark in me towards the world of digital photography, but it would be a crime if I do not mention the name of Sir Sudharak Olwe, a Mumbai based documentary photographer, who turned my world upside down and kindled the real fire inside my heart to excel in the field of photojournalism. Sir Olwe was awarded Padma Shri, one of India’s highest civilian honours for his social work in 2016. It gives me massive motivation to use my knowledge and talent towards the social benefits of society, my village, my town, my state and my country through photojournalism. Raising and eradicating society's evil issues through my photojournalism gives me the thrust to continue towards my goal. If I am able to do my best in this regard, it will be my greatest happiness. Self-respect and internal satisfaction are the golden keys for my internal happiness. I want to show their livelihood, how they survive, and their emotion and based on their daily life. TPL: Has your style of shooting changed since you first started? AS: When I was a neophyte I would click anything, like birds, flowers, toys, light trails, long exposures, but now I have started working on a series . I want to work on objective photography. TPL: How does the equipment you use help you in achieving your vision in your photography? Do you have a preferred lens/focal length? AS: In photography the subject is the most important, you have to think about your subject from the core of your heart. I also feel in the same way. The deep bonding of a photographer towards the subject is the key to success. If I take up a subject, first I feel it in my heart and mind then I start to act on it. I am the happiest man when I am out photographing. Becoming known for social work in my society with the help of photography and photojournalism is my ultimate goal. 50mm and 18mm focal length are the most suitable for me. TPL: Have you ever been involved in the artistic world before photography? AS: Yes I have been involved in the artistic world before photography. Most of my friends are artists. I have visited exhibitions with them. With one of my friends, Mr. Shashikant, who is a printmaker, I have visited so many exhibitions. Another friend, Mr. Kaushal, is a painter. I am fond of theatre. In theatre artists play live. I love the theatre world, including plays and musical theatre, for example "Charan Das Chor" (चरण दास चोर) , "Tender of Taj Mahal" (ताज महल का टेण्डर). TPL: Are there any special projects you are currently working on that you would like to let everyone know about? AS: Currently I am working on a series about river rejuvenation, recycling of waste, life in the biggest garbage dumping yard of India, but I also spare some time to take a few good shots here and there. I have an assignment from the government, but I can’t share those photographs yet before it is finished. TPL: What are some of your goals as an artist? Where do you see yourself or hope to see yourself in five years? AS: Being an artist is never a rational choice, no one can decide to be an artist, every real artistic action doesn’t employ awareness or will. All those who continuously need to remind their audience that they are artists by using their art to compensate for a lack of social skills or to boost their ego are just exhibitionists, shopkeepers of their narcissism and myth maniacs. It is not only about the work of the artist, but to live your trade, not only make a living from it. But to succeed and to live well as a paid artist. I see myself as successful and learning new skills that will benefit and help me achieve my career goal. I am eager to experience new challenges and excited to invest 5 years’ time specialising in a career , I find it extremely interesting and motivating. TPL: “When I am not out photographing, I (like to)… AS: When I don’t spend time on photography I like to spend time with my family, and I visit theatres to see plays.” PORTFOLIO read more interviews >>> CONTOURS OF ABSENCE Where concealment unsettles recognition and ordinary spaces turn psychological, the photographs of Serhii Fett suspend identity between presence and absence. THE ART OF ATTENTION Curiosity turns portraits, objects, and places into discoveries as Len Irish reflects on a life shaped by the camera’s attention. WHERE EMOTIONS BREATHE Simple encounters Irina Sedletskaya almost missed become photographs shaped by silence, distance, uncertainty, memory, hope, and resilience. THE VILLAGE A workers’ neighbourhood becomes a living archive as Virginia Cassano photographs the people, streets, and memories that continue to shape Villaggio Piaggio. MUTABLE MORPHOGENESIS By merging scientific methodologies with photographic experimentation, Emma Varga creates images that challenge fixed distinctions between human and non-human, visible and invisible. THE ARCHITECTURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS Chad Coombs’ Polaroids are small psychological scenes where identity, memory, culture, and belief push against each other. WHERE WE BELONG Community storytelling lies at the heart of The Pictorial List’s mission, and Marlon Ramos’ photographs reflects the spirit of the place we now call home. GUIDED BY A WHISPER Guided by reflection and the quiet presence of art history, Isolda Fabregat Sanz makes photographs that resist certainty and invite the viewer to remain inside the act of looking. WHAT REMAINS, WHAT EMERGES Laetitia Heisler transforms risk, memory, and the body into layered analogue visions — feminist rituals of seeing that reveal what endures, and what quietly emerges beyond visibility. WHAT WE ARE, WHAT WE DO Culture lives where art and community meet, and in this space Alejandro Dávila’s photographs reveal the unseen labor and devotion that sustain creation. ANALOGICAL LIMBO Nicola Cappellari reminds us that the photograph’s power lies not in what it shows, but in what it leaves unsaid. THREADS OF MOROCCAN LIFE Through gestures of work and moments of community, Kat Puchowska reveals Morocco’s overlooked beauty. IT STARTED AS LIGHT…ENDED IN SHIVERS… Between intimacy and estrangement, Anton Bou’s photographs wander — restless fragments of light and shadow, mapping the fragile terrain where self unravels into sensation. WITH EYES THAT LISTEN AND A HEART THAT SEES For decades, Rivka Shifman Katvan has documented the unseen backstage world of Broadway, capturing authenticity where performance and humanity intersect. DIPTYCH DIALOGUES Through the beautiful language of diptychs, Taiwanese photographer Jay Hsu invites us into a world where quiet images speak of memory, resilience, and hope. UNKNOWN ABYSSINIA In Ethiopia, Sebastian Piatek found a new way of seeing — where architecture endures, but women in motion carry the narrative forward. THE PULSE OF THE STREET Moments vanish, yet Suvam Saha holds them still — the pulse of India’s streets captured in fragments of life that will never repeat. WHAT DO WE WANT? More than documentation, David Gray reveals the human pulse of resistance and asks us to see beyond the surface of unrest. CRACKED RIBS 2016 Cynthia Karalla opens up about the art of survival, the power of perspective, and why she believes each of us holds a monopoly on our own narrative. STREETS OF KOLKATA Ayanava Sil’s reveals Kolkata’s soul, capturing moments with empathy, presence and humility while offering deep insight into both city and self. PERIPHERAL PLACES A project by Catia Montagna that distills fleeting encounters and spatial poetics into triptychs - visual short stories that capture the in-between, where meaning often hides. POINTE-AU-CHIEN IS NOT DEAD Through Wayan Barre’s documentary, we are invited not only to see but to feel the lived realities of a community standing at the crossroads of environmental collapse and cultural survival. QUEER HAPPENED HERE Author Marc Zinaman sheds light on the valuable contributions that LGBTQ+ individuals have made to the cultural and social fabric of New York City. TRACES OF TIME Marked by an ongoing visual dialogue with time, memory, and impermanence, Zamin Jafarov’s long-term projects highlight the quiet power of observation and the emotional depth of simplicity. THERE MY LITTLE EYES Guillermo Franco’s book is an exploration of seeing beyond the obvious. His work invites us to embrace patience, curiosity, and the unexpected in a world that often rushes past the details.

LES FRANÇAIS Since leaving photojournalism, Gareth Watkins has started to shoot his own long term projects documenting the region in France where he lives. LES FRANÇAIS July 16, 2021 INTERVIEW PHOTOGRAPHY Gareth Watkins INTERVIEW Melanie Meggs Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link SHARE French-British photographer Gareth Watkins started photographing back in the early eighties after reading French literature at University. In his early days, he mostly tried to capture street type pictures, in London, where he was living at the time. Gareth quickly realised if he was to work in photography, he would have to move into more general photojournalism. Thus, from the mid 1980’s, Gareth started working for a number of newspapers and agencies in London, before joining Reuters News Agency as a staff photographer in Paris in 1987. Here he covered many local and international stories for over 15 years. Since leaving Reuters, Gareth has started to shoot his own long term projects, documenting the region in France where he lives. He shares his collection of pictures from his adoptive home country, observing France and its people and their history. “Since leaving the world of press photography, I have for the first time had way more opportunity to concentrate on my own pictures, as well as returning to my favoured medium of black and white photography. Nowadays setting myself projects, I can shoot what I want, when I want; look for good light, interesting subjects without the pressure of a client or a deadline. It is extremely liberating.” IN CONVERSATION WITH GARETH WATKINS THE PICTORIAL LIST: Gareth please tell us about yourself. What was that moment that sparked your interest to pursue photography as a profession? GARETH WATKINS: I was born in the UK, but have lived the majority of my life in France, first in Paris, then in north-eastern France where I live today. I have both British and French nationalities. I currently run my own business offering fishing holidays. I first got interested in photography when I was still at university and my father bought me a Minolta SLR camera. The college had a Photo Club with its own dark room, so I jointed and learned the basics of processing and printing my own black and white pictures. After my time at university, both in the UK and France, and graduating with a degree in French literature I got more and more interested in photography and decided that I wanted to make a career of it. My first efforts to break into the profession, were to cover local sporting events in South London, where my parents lived and I tried to sell pictures to the local newspapers. After a while, a couple of papers started to use some shots and offered me my first assignments. I managed from there to get a staff job on another local South London paper. London was a great place to work when I started out, as it allowed us to cover the same stories as the national press; for example, the Royal family and major sports events like First Division Football and Wimbledon. I was thus able to put together a portfolio of shots and get some freelance shifts on the UK daily papers and PA new agency. After a year or two trying to get steady work on Fleet Street, I came across an advert for a job at Reuters in the UK Press Gazette. Not really expecting to even get an interview, I applied and to my great surprise, was hired as a Photographer/Picture Editor. After a year or so, a position opened up at the Paris bureau. As a French speaker I decided to apply and again I was successful. And so, I moved back to France. I remained in Paris until I left Reuters at the beginning of the 2000's. TPL: As your time as a photojournalist, can you tell us about any significant moments that you had over your career? GW: During the more than 25 years I worked as a photojournalist it is very hard to pick any one assignment. My favourite assignments to cover were the big sporting events, as I always felt it was me and the athletes, and no other outside influence. If they were good and I was good, the pictures could be exceptional. I covered eight or nine French Tennis Opens, several World Athletics Championships, and Olympics, as well as the Tour de France and major football and rugby competitions. Outside of sport I was able to cover the Paris Fashion weeks for many years. One assignment the marked me was the Kurdish refugees story following the first gulf war, where I travelled to Iran and the border with Iraq. This was a memorable trip in a fascinating part of the world. We also covered French politics on a regular basis, travelling with the French President, initially François Mitterrand and then Jacques Chirac, visiting countries as far afield as the Caribbean, West Africa, and Asia. I think the most significant aspect of the period was the huge change in technology from my beginnings to when I left. We started with b&w prints, travelling with a portable lab and transmitter, developing, and making prints in hotel bathrooms. Securing a reliable phone line to wire the pictures was an important part of the job. We then moved to colour negative and were early adopters of digital technology. The early cameras were dreadful quality, slow, cumbersome, and ridiculously expensive, but allowed us to shoot and transmit images in a fraction of the time it took to develop and wire a negative. Our production switched 100% digital after the 1998 Football World Cup in France. We were all issued two Canon EOS1 DSC520 cameras and a Macbook. This meant with a GSM mobile phone, we could literally send pictures from anywhere in the world in minutes. TPL: Retiring from your job as a photojournalist, how has this had an effect on your personal photography projects? GW: Working as a photojournalist in the wire service, one has virtually no time for personal projects. We were shooting often 2 or 3 assignments a day or travelling to cover an event or breaking news story. During my leisure time I didn’t generally take any pictures, even if I always had a camera with me just in case. After leaving Paris I initially did some commercial assignments for the local tourist board as well as moving into video, shooting corporate promotional clips in France for a couple of UK based holiday firms. Since leaving the world of press photography, I have for the first time had way more opportunity to concentrate on my own pictures, as well as returning to my favoured medium of black and white photography. Working for the press or commercial clients you have to shoot what they want, and there are few possibilities. Nowadays setting myself projects, I can shoot what I want, when I want; look for good light, interesting subjects without the pressure of a client or a deadline. It is extremely liberating. I saw an interview with a Magnum photographer recently, and he said he couldn’t bear working for editorial clients, and I can totally see what he means. Pictures are digital these days, I can’t see me returning to film. Not having the pressures of deadlines and time constraints, has freed me to look for local subjects to document; the Covid crisis being a notable case in point. TPL: Can you tell us about your current project documenting where you live? What would you like to communicate to the viewer? And why did you want to do the project in black and white? GW: My current location in France is near the famous WW1 battles grounds of the ‘Chemin des Dames’. Having moved here in the early 2000’s I have become fascinated in this history steeped area. It was largely obliterated during the Great War, with over 300 villages raised to the ground. Some were rebuilt and some were abandoned, and nature was left to take back it’s right. Having a decent collection of photography books, by some of the photographers I mentioned earlier, I realised that they were for the most part, not assigned the subject matter they chose to shoot, but made personal projects documenting an area. I felt drawn to this part of France, French history and the people and places around me. So, I started to research for myself the various places of interest and to visit them one by one. This included interesting landscapes, but also the people. Black and white was just a natural choice. Firstly, I had always enjoyed the gritty aspect of monochrome, but also, I felt by the very nature of the subjects, it made for stronger images. In many instances the colour takes over the picture and becomes the main focal point. One can’t do anything about what colours are present, unless the choice is made to shoot in b&w. I then made the choice to self-publish the pictures in Zines and Photobooks. The internet now has a fantastic choice and offers multiple companies that will produce one-off publications. It is a simple matter to download a ‘drag & drop’ programme and to create a picture book. I feel it is still important today to see pictures in print. All too many images are simply posted on the internet or stored on phones or hard drives and probably at some point deleted. I unfortunately, lost a large percentage of my press pictures during the early digital days, simply because, we didn’t have the drive space to stock the pictures. Hard drives stopped working and the hugely expensive media was reformatted after the story was filed and any unfiled picture deleted. In those early naïve days of digital we didn’t realise just how fragile this chain of production was, and also didn’t appreciate the value of our work. Once it was transmitted to the subscribers and published, it was forgotten, and we moved onto the next assignment. So today I find it far more satisfying to see a collection of my pictures of a certain subject printed in book form. Over the last couple of years, I have done projects on the local canal, a collection of the local people where I live seen through my eyes and lens, as well as a personal collection of the recent Covid pandemic, seen through our experience, being locked down in a small village in rural France. These projects printed in small runs for myself gave a focus to my ongoing project of documenting daily life, the people and the places around me. TPL: Do you have any favourite artists or photographers you would like to share with us, and the reason for their significance? GW: In my formative years I collected books by photographers such as W. Eugene Smith, Don McCullin, Henri Cartier-Bresson etc. I think they inspired many aspiring photographers at the time, and still do. I was fortunate to have worked with some of the most talented photojournalists in the world over the years. Many of the wire service guys were exceptional photographers, and I learned a lot very fast with a hugely steep learning curve. Currently I follow closely a number of photographers, as social media has opened up access to a wide number of artists one would probably not see outside publications in magazines and newspapers. The last book I bought was the hugely impressive work by Peter Turnley covering the start of the Covid pandemic in New York and Paris. His black and white pictures were not only beautiful and eloquent but terrifying at the same time. Since leaving the world of press photography, I have for the first time had way more opportunity to concentrate on my own pictures, as well as returning to my favoured medium of black and white photography. TPL: Do you have any other favourite places outside where you live that you enjoy photographing? GW: One of my favourite places is Le Touquet on the northern coast of France. We rent a holiday house there every summer. It is one of the majestic turn-of-the-century French ‘Station balnéaire’, like Cabourg and Deauville. Except is has a family atmosphere and a lot of charm. I find it a wonderful reservoir for picture opportunities. I have always loved the seaside, with its wonderful light and often grandiose landscapes. Added to this the quirky nature of beachgoers and it is the perfect setting for ‘street’ type photography. It takes me back to the days when I used to wander around East London looking for pictures, but instead of the rather sinister aspect the city had back then I have a more festive holiday backdrop in which to seek out interesting pictures. TPL: When you take pictures, do you usually have a concept in mind of what you want to shoot, or do you let the images just "come to you", or is it both? GW: I would probably say a bit of both. I will often try to come up with a local subject, be it an event or just and interesting place to shoot. I will usually check it out on Google Street View, which I have found an invaluable tool, in looking for angles and details that one can easily miss when actually on location. While I like to have people in my pictures, to add context and as a document of our places and times, I still often like to make a landscape shot too, especially if the sky is dramatic, and here in Eastern France, with wide sweeping landscape vistas, we get some awesome skies, that are prefect for black and white. Other times I will simply grab my camera and wander, this can produce multiple nice shots or nothing at all. But after years as a wire service ‘snapper’ where we regularly had to go out at any time and make a decent illustration of a newsworthy subject, that was at first sight rather dull, one gets good at finding a picture. One gets adept at summing up the surroundings and seeing or anticipating quickly if there is an interesting picture to be made, and where to place oneself to get it. I think if I had one piece of advice for anyone starting out today it would be that you need to anticipate. You need to see pictures; composition has to be second nature. Once you see where a potential image might happen, you need to be in place to frame it and snap it. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t. But the more you do it the luckier you get… Cartier Bresson spoke of a ‘decisive moment’, but you don’t just get lucky and ‘bang’ you have a perfectly timed shot...No, you have to see where the scene will break down, where the elements will come together and what your picture could be. If he was a master of these perfectly timed shots, there was no luck in it. He knew and had the vision to see the picture. One needs to always be looking for pictures, always framing in your head, even when you don’t have a camera in your hand. Shooting sports before autofocus trained us to anticipate. It was virtually impossible to follow a soccer or rugby player running flat out or a 100m sprinter. One had to look at the game, know the sport and guess where a piece of action would take place. Focus on the spot and get your timing spot on. It was hard and need concentration, but it was a good school. Nowadays, follow focus on a modern camera makes all this far easier, but the basic premise still rings true, and no amount of technical wizardry can take away the need to anticipate. TPL: Does the equipment you use help you in achieving your vision in your photography? What camera do you use? Do you have a preferred lens/focal length? GW: Equipment is not hugely important; all modern cameras give excellent results. I did however, make the choice three or four years ago to move away from big DSLRs and Zooms. I had a bag with Canon 5D iii bodies, and 16-35mm, 24-105mm and 70-200mm zooms. It weighed a ton...I think many photographers who lugged around bags of heavy gear for years, ended up with back issues, and I was no exception. So, my equipment requirements these days are based on size and weight as much as anything else. A friend offered to sell me a Fuji X-Pro1 and a couple of lenses. I bought this and was hooked. It was small light, and the quality of both the images and fixed focal lenses was superb. I have since widened my collection of lenses and updated to the X-Pro2 bodies. The X-Pro2 is a very fast camera to use, has excellent autofocus and is a joy to use. It’s retro style takes me back to my first serious camera the Nikon FE, with it’s dials and aperture ring. I currently use the 23mm F2 and the 50mm F2 as my main focal lengths. These give me a full frame equivalent of 35mm and 75mm. These are attached permanently to my camera bodies. I do have the 18mm and 35mm (28mm and 50mm equivalents) but only rarely use them. These two cameras go everywhere with me now, in a small Billingham bag, and mean I can grab a picture at any moment. I often see a subject while out in my car and can stop, jump out and make the picture. This would never have been possible with the Canon gear, as I simply wouldn’t have had it with me at all times. TPL: What are some of your goals as an artist/photographer? Where do you hope to see yourself in five years? GW: I’ll be 60 next year, so while I am still fit and healthy, I don’t really have any massive ambitions as a photographer. The world of photojournalism has moved on and now a new generation of young people often armed with just a phone has emerged and replaced the generation I came from. In France, the printed press is in crisis and press groups are firing more staff photographers than they are hiring. Pictures are now sold for very little money and surviving as a freelance these days is a very hard task. As I said above the advances in camera technology have meant that it is now far quicker and easier to make pictures and produce nice images than it used to be. While the soul of photography has perhaps been ripped out, the digital era has opened up image making to many more people and democratised the whole process. What used to be a skilled trade, shooting, developing, and printing pictures and wiring them on time to hit deadlines, has disappeared. Now what would have taken several hours to do can be done literally in seconds. Publications can now change up their content literally on a minute by minute basis...pictures have become far too ephemeral. This is why I like to print my collections, so in 10 or 15 years and beyond we will have a record of what life was like, hopefully pictures that only have marginal value now, will take on a historical document function and show future generations what our times were like. We have seen larger strides made in image making in the last 15 years than were made since the inception of photography. In five years' time, assuming I’m still as fit as I am today, I will continue to set my own projects and print my pictures…and who knows, I might even do some colour work...but as someone once said to me "Don’t forget to smell the flowers along the way!" TPL: "When I am not out photographing, I (like to)… CW: As we live in the countryside, we like to walk usually with our two Tervuren dogs. We try to get out and do some cycling as often as possible to keep active. Also I am a lifelong fisherman, so when time allows, I like to get out and fish the local rivers in my region. I have my own lakes for my fishing business too and I will often do some fishing there, if I don’t have any customers." PORTFOLIO WEBSITE INSTAGRAM read more interviews >>> CONTOURS OF ABSENCE Where concealment unsettles recognition and ordinary spaces turn psychological, the photographs of Serhii Fett suspend identity between presence and absence. THE ART OF ATTENTION Curiosity turns portraits, objects, and places into discoveries as Len Irish reflects on a life shaped by the camera’s attention. WHERE EMOTIONS BREATHE Simple encounters Irina Sedletskaya almost missed become photographs shaped by silence, distance, uncertainty, memory, hope, and resilience. THE VILLAGE A workers’ neighbourhood becomes a living archive as Virginia Cassano photographs the people, streets, and memories that continue to shape Villaggio Piaggio. MUTABLE MORPHOGENESIS By merging scientific methodologies with photographic experimentation, Emma Varga creates images that challenge fixed distinctions between human and non-human, visible and invisible. THE ARCHITECTURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS Chad Coombs’ Polaroids are small psychological scenes where identity, memory, culture, and belief push against each other. WHERE WE BELONG Community storytelling lies at the heart of The Pictorial List’s mission, and Marlon Ramos’ photographs reflects the spirit of the place we now call home. GUIDED BY A WHISPER Guided by reflection and the quiet presence of art history, Isolda Fabregat Sanz makes photographs that resist certainty and invite the viewer to remain inside the act of looking. WHAT REMAINS, WHAT EMERGES Laetitia Heisler transforms risk, memory, and the body into layered analogue visions — feminist rituals of seeing that reveal what endures, and what quietly emerges beyond visibility. WHAT WE ARE, WHAT WE DO Culture lives where art and community meet, and in this space Alejandro Dávila’s photographs reveal the unseen labor and devotion that sustain creation. ANALOGICAL LIMBO Nicola Cappellari reminds us that the photograph’s power lies not in what it shows, but in what it leaves unsaid. THREADS OF MOROCCAN LIFE Through gestures of work and moments of community, Kat Puchowska reveals Morocco’s overlooked beauty. IT STARTED AS LIGHT…ENDED IN SHIVERS… Between intimacy and estrangement, Anton Bou’s photographs wander — restless fragments of light and shadow, mapping the fragile terrain where self unravels into sensation. WITH EYES THAT LISTEN AND A HEART THAT SEES For decades, Rivka Shifman Katvan has documented the unseen backstage world of Broadway, capturing authenticity where performance and humanity intersect. DIPTYCH DIALOGUES Through the beautiful language of diptychs, Taiwanese photographer Jay Hsu invites us into a world where quiet images speak of memory, resilience, and hope. UNKNOWN ABYSSINIA In Ethiopia, Sebastian Piatek found a new way of seeing — where architecture endures, but women in motion carry the narrative forward. THE PULSE OF THE STREET Moments vanish, yet Suvam Saha holds them still — the pulse of India’s streets captured in fragments of life that will never repeat. WHAT DO WE WANT? More than documentation, David Gray reveals the human pulse of resistance and asks us to see beyond the surface of unrest. CRACKED RIBS 2016 Cynthia Karalla opens up about the art of survival, the power of perspective, and why she believes each of us holds a monopoly on our own narrative. STREETS OF KOLKATA Ayanava Sil’s reveals Kolkata’s soul, capturing moments with empathy, presence and humility while offering deep insight into both city and self. PERIPHERAL PLACES A project by Catia Montagna that distills fleeting encounters and spatial poetics into triptychs - visual short stories that capture the in-between, where meaning often hides. POINTE-AU-CHIEN IS NOT DEAD Through Wayan Barre’s documentary, we are invited not only to see but to feel the lived realities of a community standing at the crossroads of environmental collapse and cultural survival. QUEER HAPPENED HERE Author Marc Zinaman sheds light on the valuable contributions that LGBTQ+ individuals have made to the cultural and social fabric of New York City. TRACES OF TIME Marked by an ongoing visual dialogue with time, memory, and impermanence, Zamin Jafarov’s long-term projects highlight the quiet power of observation and the emotional depth of simplicity. THERE MY LITTLE EYES Guillermo Franco’s book is an exploration of seeing beyond the obvious. His work invites us to embrace patience, curiosity, and the unexpected in a world that often rushes past the details.

ANALOGICAL LIMBO Nicola Cappellari reminds us that the photograph’s power lies not in what it shows, but in what it leaves unsaid. ANALOGICAL LIMBO Nicola Cappellari reminds us that the photograph’s power lies not in what it shows, but in what it leaves unsaid. October 26, 2025 INTERVIEW PHOTOGRAPHY Nicola Cappellari INTERVIEW Melanie Meggs Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link SHARE In Nicola Cappellari’s work, the photograph is never an endpoint. It does not resolve into certainty or narrative but remains suspended, waiting. His project Analogical Limbo inhabits this threshold, where the photographic act becomes less about representation than about suggestion, less about fixing the world in a frame than about leaving it open for interpretation. A tree pressed against a wall, a cluster of flowers trembling at the edge of a field, laundry drifting in front of barred windows, the faint constellation of leaves floating on water — Nicola’s photographs draw our attention to what is usually overlooked. They are visual footnotes that ask to be read not for what they tell us but for what they allow us to imagine. In this sense, his photographs are closer to invitations than declarations, their meaning completed only when someone else enters them. Trained in philosophy at the University of Padua and seasoned by more than twenty-five years in marketing and communication, Nicola carries into his practice a double awareness: of how images persuade and of how they fail. In stepping away from the compromises of commercial work, he embraced film photography as a way of reclaiming time. A time to wait, to imagine, to be unsettled. For Nicola, the delay inherent to the analogue process is not a technical inconvenience but a philosophical necessity. It creates a space where anticipation sharpens perception, where the act of seeing is infused with uncertainty, and where the photograph becomes an event of waiting. Analogical Limbo does not construct a linear narrative. Instead, it unfolds as a series of fragments, each capable of standing on its own. A photograph of a road bending out of sight does not explain itself; it simply gestures toward distance and disappearance. A pair of swans gliding through a narrow canal is less a document of place than a fleeting allegory of passage. These images resist being tied down to singular interpretations, instead hovering in the indeterminate space between document and metaphor. Nicola himself admits uncertainty: he knows what the project is not more than what it is. It is not a story of place, nor an exercise in technical virtuosity, nor a neatly packaged series. Rather, it is a field of possibility, where every image is provisional, every meaning contingent, every fragment alive with the potential to become a story through the gaze of another. At the heart of Nicola’s practice lies a conviction that photography is a triadic relation: subject, photographer, and, crucially, the observer. It is only in this final encounter that the image becomes truly alive, transformed from a surface into a story. In this sense, he challenges dominant notions of photographic authorship. He refuses the position of the omniscient narrator, instead offering images that are deliberately incomplete, waiting for the observer to enter and co-create meaning. This stance situates his work within what could be called the poetics of the document. It echoes a lineage of photographic practices concerned with ambiguity, incompleteness, and the fragment — not as weaknesses but as conditions of thought. Nicola describes himself as searching for “traces of life where apparently there aren’t any.” This is perhaps the most accurate articulation of Analogical Limbo. His photographs do not seek grand narratives. Instead, they attend to the residual and the almost invisible. These traces, ephemeral yet persistent, become metaphors for resilience against indifference. What matters is not what the photograph shows but what it suggests, what it allows the observer to imagine beyond the frame. It is from this position of openness that we begin our conversation with Nicola Cappellari. In dialogue, he reflects on the philosophical roots of his practice, the necessity of waiting, and the fragile life of images once they are released to the gaze of others. “Film is in fact an analogical limbo where I can slow down and imagine. It embraces my good intentions and even my less good intentions. In the meantime, my ideas take shape, slowly, without rushing. I don’t really know what this work is about, but I do know what it is not. It is not a story made of images because every image can be a story on its own.” IN CONVERSATION WITH NICOLA CAPPELLARI TPL: Your project Analogical Limbo refuses fixed narratives and instead embraces fragments and incompleteness. You’ve written, “I don’t really know what this work is about, but I do know what it is not.” How does this philosophy of “not knowing” guide the way you approach the camera? Do you find freedom in this refusal to define, or does it sometimes create tension in how others read your work? NICOLA: I love that incompleteness you talk about. It’s an opportunity for dialogue between photographer and observer. That’s the way that an image can turn into a very personal story and finally become a real “photo”. To me photography is a sort of co-created flux: there is the photographer, with his sensibility, eye and heart and there are the sensible eyes and heart of the observer. TPL: You’ve described film as a limbo where you can “slow down and imagine,” and admitted you almost shake before seeing the developed images. What does this waiting mean to you in the analogue process? Do you think this delay of revelation brings you closer to the meaning of photography, or is it more about creating space for imagination? NICOLA: What would Newton’s gravity force discovery be without the waiting time? No waiting, no apple, no gravity force. It’s not about a derby between digital and analog technology (of course not), I just don’t fit in with the speed of the digital process, it is too much, too fast, it confuses me, I need time to think, dream, love, imagine. I think the “limbo” we talk about is a very current topic, I think it is the opportunity to reconquer the dimension of waiting, observing, hearing…and finally better managing the velocity of daily life. TPL: In your writing, you say you look for “breadcrumbs that resist against the wind and cold but melt like jellyfish on a hot summer rock when it comes to indifference.” Do you see yourself as a documentarian of these fragile traces, or as a poet working through metaphor? How do you know when such a trace is worth photographing — do you decide, or does the image decide for you? NICOLA: You’ve really caught the core of my attempt. The challenge is to tell life where apparently there isn’t any. Silent signs, everyday objects become stages where life has passed, passes and will pass. Even if not represented with tangible evidence, you can feel it, you can imagine it and build your very own story. This, again, is my romantic vision of a photography made both by the artist and the observer. And then, well yes, I think the object itself has a sort of personal will, I first feel touched from it and then I react with my sensibility. TPL: You speak of photography as a threefold relation: subject, photographer, and, above all, the observer. How do you imagine the observer when you are working — are they always present in your mind, or do they only arrive later, after the photograph is finished? NICOLA: No, when I’m photographing, I don’t think about the observer, and not even about myself. I just float in my bubble, letting myself be enraptured by the scene and follow in love for the moment. TPL: Your background in philosophy and communication means you think deeply about how images persuade and how they fail. How do these two worlds — critical thinking and visual practice — intersect in your photography? Do you see photography as closer to language, or as something that resists words altogether? NICOLA: I’m in love with a kind of photography that’s symbolic and able to give clues without telling too much. In this regard I suppose photography to me is about intuition more than about words. It’s a very personal inner speech which allows me to have a different connection with the world around me. Contemporary communication tends to atrophy in the same way our minds. Everything has been already pre-cut, mixed, poured into specific jars and served to be sucked in a blink of an eye. The risk is to become more uncritical. So welcome to every form of art able to provoke, shake and stimulate the creativity and the critical thinking. TPL: In a world saturated with instant digital images, you choose to remain with film. Do you see this as an act of resistance, or simply as a personal way of inhabiting time? How do you think your photographs might change if you were to work digitally, even just experimentally? NICOLA: Probably I’ve partially already answered, but it’s exactly as you say: a personal way of inhabiting time. I’m fascinated by digital photography potential, but I just haven’t found my way to use it yet. Digital is for me a sort of drug, I take thousands of photographs, I can’t stop, and I can’t focus on my idea. I change my mind quickly and so I change the photos just because I can do it. In a way, I need to be forced not to be able to see, I need time to think and rethink and rethink again those clicks I have in in my mind. When I finally come out from my dark room with that print in my hands is to me a sort of certification and conclusion of my photographic and mental trip. The fear of being superficial pushes me to look for traces of life where apparently, there aren’t any. TPL: Reflecting on your exhibitions and books, from Analogical Limbo to Marea, what has been most important to you: making the images, sharing them, or witnessing how they are transformed by the gaze of others? Do you ever feel that once an image is released, it no longer belongs to you? NICOLA: I love this question, really. The truth is that I can’t separate the phrases you talk about. They complete each other. The idea of evoking an emotion is incredible. To image someone making up his own story thanks to that little piece of me, well, really gives me goose bumps all the time. So, no, I don’t feel the image is no longer mine when it’s released, I just let it go with the hope that it will have great chances to live many adventures. TPL: You have described yourself as a “hopeless romantic” who believes in waiting. After years of pursuing traces, fragments, and the limbo of film, what still feels urgent to you when you lift the camera to your eye? What do you hope your future photographs will offer, both to yourself and to those who encounter them? NICOLA: Hmm...this is the fourth time I have tried to answer this question. To be honest I wish to myself to keep alive the flame of passion a curiosity. If so, I’m sure I will be able to complete the projects I’m working on, and I also think there will be the chance to build new beautiful dialogues with all the ones I will meet on the way. TPL: Let’s talk about the practical side. What’s in your photography bag when you head out? Do you keep it minimal, or do you like having options at hand? Is there one tool — camera, lens, or even a non-photographic item — that feels essential to how you work? NICOLA: Very minimal. In my backpack I have films, a new battery for my exposure meter and (sometimes) a second camera just in case… My number one camera today is a Leica M6 with a 35mm Summicron but I sometimes dedicate other cameras to certain specific projects. For example, I’ve been working on a project (friendly named Home Life Diary) where I use a little point and shoot camera bought for $35 online. A pencil and a little block are always in the backpack pocket because I love to write down my thoughts or sensations connected to…those clicks I immediately believe in. TPL: How do you prepare yourself for photographing? Do you plan your walks and encounters, or do you prefer to let chance guide you entirely? Has chance ever led you to an image that became pivotal in your practice? NICOLA: I’m the person who stops the car on the highway and walks backwards 50 meters because he’s just seen an old shoe on the roadside to photograph. Sometimes I wish I were able to plan something in advance, but I’m not. I just go around with my camera as it was a fashion accessory, even to a job appointment. And, yes, at times fate works with me too, especially when I use my beloved Rolly 35t which has the plus not to be perfect as the Leica one. It's those little imperfections that lets me take clicks without thinking too much. I love how sometimes I 100% work with intuition and just “click” with no reasoning at all. Sometimes I develop the film and discover something I wouldn’t have done with the Leica approach. There are actually many of these photos in Analogical Limbo and I’m really proud of this collaboration with fate… TPL: Having spent decades in communication, how do you think about publishing your work today? Do you prefer physical books, exhibitions, or digital platforms? Do you feel the medium of presentation changes the way a photograph lives? NICOLA: Totally and definitely “book”. A book to touch, to smell, to see in my library. To me there is no photography without keeping something physical in my hands. Exhibitions, presentations, events are great moments because you can really feel other’s emotions, you shake hands (and I really love shaking hands), you meet people, you talk and hopefully drink good wine. And then we have the digital world. Well, you know what? Having an analogical soul doesn’t keep me from appreciating this world. I do appreciate it and I’m discovering how “in the name of passion” it’s possible to jump from virtual friendship to real friendship. I love this and it helps me to be optimistic in a new humanistic era. TPL: When you set the camera down, where do we find you? What else brings you joy or sustains your creativity outside of photography? NICOLA: I live and work on my beloved hill with a big dark dog, a cat, three turtles, a wife and two daughters (not in order of importance). This place is my never-ending source of inspiration and passion. Gather firewood, pruning olive trees, mowing the lawn, taking care of my rare African plants…This place is a sort of daily emotive gymnastic. Then of course there are friends, music, trips… But you know what? Even chopping wood, I always have a camera with me…there could be something in every moment lighting up my imagination and I feel safe bringing a camera in my pocket everywhere. PORTFOLIO WEBSITE INSTAGRAM read more interviews >>> CONTOURS OF ABSENCE Where concealment unsettles recognition and ordinary spaces turn psychological, the photographs of Serhii Fett suspend identity between presence and absence. THE ART OF ATTENTION Curiosity turns portraits, objects, and places into discoveries as Len Irish reflects on a life shaped by the camera’s attention. WHERE EMOTIONS BREATHE Simple encounters Irina Sedletskaya almost missed become photographs shaped by silence, distance, uncertainty, memory, hope, and resilience. THE VILLAGE A workers’ neighbourhood becomes a living archive as Virginia Cassano photographs the people, streets, and memories that continue to shape Villaggio Piaggio. MUTABLE MORPHOGENESIS By merging scientific methodologies with photographic experimentation, Emma Varga creates images that challenge fixed distinctions between human and non-human, visible and invisible. THE ARCHITECTURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS Chad Coombs’ Polaroids are small psychological scenes where identity, memory, culture, and belief push against each other. WHERE WE BELONG Community storytelling lies at the heart of The Pictorial List’s mission, and Marlon Ramos’ photographs reflects the spirit of the place we now call home. GUIDED BY A WHISPER Guided by reflection and the quiet presence of art history, Isolda Fabregat Sanz makes photographs that resist certainty and invite the viewer to remain inside the act of looking. WHAT REMAINS, WHAT EMERGES Laetitia Heisler transforms risk, memory, and the body into layered analogue visions — feminist rituals of seeing that reveal what endures, and what quietly emerges beyond visibility. WHAT WE ARE, WHAT WE DO Culture lives where art and community meet, and in this space Alejandro Dávila’s photographs reveal the unseen labor and devotion that sustain creation. ANALOGICAL LIMBO Nicola Cappellari reminds us that the photograph’s power lies not in what it shows, but in what it leaves unsaid. THREADS OF MOROCCAN LIFE Through gestures of work and moments of community, Kat Puchowska reveals Morocco’s overlooked beauty. IT STARTED AS LIGHT…ENDED IN SHIVERS… Between intimacy and estrangement, Anton Bou’s photographs wander — restless fragments of light and shadow, mapping the fragile terrain where self unravels into sensation. WITH EYES THAT LISTEN AND A HEART THAT SEES For decades, Rivka Shifman Katvan has documented the unseen backstage world of Broadway, capturing authenticity where performance and humanity intersect. DIPTYCH DIALOGUES Through the beautiful language of diptychs, Taiwanese photographer Jay Hsu invites us into a world where quiet images speak of memory, resilience, and hope. UNKNOWN ABYSSINIA In Ethiopia, Sebastian Piatek found a new way of seeing — where architecture endures, but women in motion carry the narrative forward. THE PULSE OF THE STREET Moments vanish, yet Suvam Saha holds them still — the pulse of India’s streets captured in fragments of life that will never repeat. WHAT DO WE WANT? More than documentation, David Gray reveals the human pulse of resistance and asks us to see beyond the surface of unrest. CRACKED RIBS 2016 Cynthia Karalla opens up about the art of survival, the power of perspective, and why she believes each of us holds a monopoly on our own narrative. STREETS OF KOLKATA Ayanava Sil’s reveals Kolkata’s soul, capturing moments with empathy, presence and humility while offering deep insight into both city and self. PERIPHERAL PLACES A project by Catia Montagna that distills fleeting encounters and spatial poetics into triptychs - visual short stories that capture the in-between, where meaning often hides. POINTE-AU-CHIEN IS NOT DEAD Through Wayan Barre’s documentary, we are invited not only to see but to feel the lived realities of a community standing at the crossroads of environmental collapse and cultural survival. QUEER HAPPENED HERE Author Marc Zinaman sheds light on the valuable contributions that LGBTQ+ individuals have made to the cultural and social fabric of New York City. TRACES OF TIME Marked by an ongoing visual dialogue with time, memory, and impermanence, Zamin Jafarov’s long-term projects highlight the quiet power of observation and the emotional depth of simplicity. THERE MY LITTLE EYES Guillermo Franco’s book is an exploration of seeing beyond the obvious. His work invites us to embrace patience, curiosity, and the unexpected in a world that often rushes past the details.

THE ART OF SELF Mia Depaola's photography inspires self-awareness, capturing the beauty of the human spirit and immortalizing it through her insightful lens. THE ART OF SELF June 21, 2024 INTERVIEW PHOTOGRAPHY Mia Depaola INTERVIEW Karen Ghostlaw Pomarico Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link SHARE The Pictorial List has the pleasure of presenting an intuitive photographer with a strong creative inner perspective that inspires. Mia Depaola is a Washington D.C. luminary whose artistry transcends borders and languages. From her earliest memory, the language of photography and art has always intrigued Mia. It focused her critical and creative thinking, shaping her perceptions while illuminating the world in poetic visuals. Born beneath the azure skies of Portugal, nurtured and educated amidst the cultural tapestry of Belgium, Mia speaks three languages infusing her work with richness and depth. She embarked on a journey that traversed numerous countries, each contributing to the kaleidoscope of experiences that shape her visual storytelling. Mia found solace and expression in the language of art and photography. It was through the lens of her father's Polaroid that first glimpsed through the viewfinder ignited in her, the power of visual storytelling. Imagine the legacy of the hobbyist, and the photography that he imparted, transcending generations and epochs. Initially, Mia’s photographic endeavors mirrored his, capturing the essence of travel and familial moments. Yet, as the sands of time shifted, so too did Mia’s artistic evolution. Photography ceased to be a mere documentation tool; it transformed into a conduit for profound artistic expression — an extension of my innermost thoughts and emotions. An introvert by nature, Mia sought solace and camaraderie within online photography communities nearly a decade ago. Here, amidst pixels and screens, she found a sanctuary where creativity knows no bounds. Guided by the wisdom of online courses and the collective encouragement of fellow artisans spanning the globe, Mia embarked on a journey of self-discovery and technical mastery. Here, amidst the collective wisdom of fellow artisans, she honed her craft, experimenting with techniques and embracing the boundless possibilities of their art. Driven by her relentless passion encouraged by the supportive and kind words of friends and colleagues globally, Mia gained confidence and started submitting her work, developing a clear dialogue, while growing as a photographer. Yet, amidst the accolades and acclaim, their artistic journey remains grounded in the simple joy of creation, a true testament to the transformative power of the art of photography to unite souls and transcend boundaries. When the world came to a standstill due to the pandemic, it was as if someone pressed pause on our lives. Suddenly, familiar places were off-limits, and we found ourselves confined within the walls of our homes. As the days stretched into weeks, Mia began to explore the intimacy of their own space through the lens of her camera. She embarked on a journey of self-discovery through self-portraiture. With each click of the shutter, she set out to visually captured raw emotions rather than staged poses. Mia wanted to peel back the layers of her very own existence revealing the complexities hidden within. At first, the process felt almost too revealing, her exposure to recognizable. As Mia delved deeper into her photography, she began exploring ways to add texture and mystery to each image. Experimenting with techniques such as layering and multiple exposures, she discovered new dimensions of her self-expression. Every photograph becomes a canvas for exploration, a reflection of a complex myriad emotions. “Most times I envision the type of feeling I wish to convey before I press the shutter button…multi layering because we’re all multilayered and complex.” Other times, the images would take on a life of their own, revealing aspects of Mia that surprised her and had never before acknowledged. As the weeks turned into months, Mia’s work began to gain recognition. Her photographs were published, awarded, and exhibited in galleries. What had started as a personal project born out of strange and sometimes almost impossible circumstances soon evolved into something greater than Mia could have imagined. The “Pandemic Diaries,” was the original title of this series, it became a testament to the resilience of the human spirit in the face of adversity. It was a visual diary of her journey through isolation, a reminder that even in the darkest of times, there is beauty to be found. But as the world began to slowly reopen, Mia realized that her journey was far from over. The “Pandemic Diaries” had morphed into something new, something more expansive. It had become the “Artist Next Door,” more recently developing into “MiArt”, presently “The Art of Self”, an exploration of the art of self-discovery. Through these photographs, she invites others to join her on this journey of self-exploration. To peel back the layers of their own existence and discover the beauty within. For we are all multilayered and complex, each of us a work of art waiting to be unveiled. And through the lens of her camera, she captures the essence of what it means to be human. We asked Mia some questions about her inspiring journey as a visual storyteller, and about her project that she has been so diligently working on for almost a decade. “Photography and art have always been part of my life. I’ve recorded memories like snapshots long before I held a camera.” IN CONVERSATION WITH MIA DEPAOLA THE PICTORIAL LIST: Hi Mia, thank you for sharing your personal perspective and brilliant project you started during the trying and confining isolating time of the Pandemic, that continues today. Please tell our readers about how you saw yourself at the onset of the project, in comparison to how you see yourself now. Have you changed? If so, how? MIA: At the onset of the pandemic, I wasn’t unreasonably concerned. It’s when lockdowns started that it became more difficult for me, especially with mobility restrictions. I do lots of street photography actually, on the way to some routine errand I usually take a lightweight camera and I look around. I follow the light, what mood is there? I don’t photograph people, I’m more interested in ordinary things, trivial stuff like flowers for instance. So, I missed that right away when confinement was the norm. What am I going to photograph now? So, it hit me, why not document yourself. The pandemic, it definitely pushed me in different directions. TPL: Did the project help you cope with the Pandemic? What skills have you strengthened, learned, developed in your search for ‘Self’? MIA: The silver lining if I may use that phrase, is it propelled me to learn new things, getting more comfortable with portrait photography. So, I put my portable backdrop in my kitchen or in the guest bedroom and started photographing myself. Split lighting was my favorite, occasionally butterfly lighting. Eventually I started experimenting more with lighting to try to achieve different shadows, a bit of drama 😊, split lighting is still my preferred option in most selfies. It was like therapy in a way. I believe it helped me grow some self-confidence and at the same time procured a positive diversion from the unusual time we were going through. TPL: Were there photographers you looked to for inspiration, direction? If so, who were they and were they interested in self-portraiture? MIA: I don’t recall looking up for particular portraitists, I would look online for tips and try to apply them. Eventually I felt unsatisfied with the results, it was too intimate, my emotions bare, too raw. That’s when I came up with the idea to experiment with layers. I tried and used several different types of editing tools allowing me to superimpose images. Overlay add, lighten or darken opacity. Every image is processed differently. Some layers work well, and others don’t. Some images take days to complete, others will take just a few hours. What I mean is each piece is uniquely processed. Some images include only 2 or 3 layers others can be up to 10. TPL: You say that the project has changed and developed from the initial start of this study during the Pandemic, what are these changes? Have they changed the way you engage and then process your work? MIA: The main change is the gain in knowledge for image processing, I finally tackled photography editing tools like photoshop and more recently I’ve started using Affinity. And on a personal level, it’s been life affirming to have some of my work being published, awarded and even exhibited. Never imagined my work would interest anyone enough and that I would get accolades from such a personal project. TPL: What are some challenges or obstacles you faced, and how did you overcome them? Share some personal wisdom and advice with our readers. MIA: Oh, I’m not sure I’m wise, humbly I would just say believe in yourself, keep trying and be curious. Also, that no project is uninteresting if it comes from the heart. Because the viewers will definitely see it. Some will appreciate your work while others won’t, but ultimately, it doesn’t matter, it should be about your intent, what you want to convey. You can’t go wrong like that. Focus (pun intended) on your ability to see not on your technical ability. I like this quote from Peter Adams, “great photography is about depth of feeling, not depth of field.” TPL: What are some of the successes from the project, were there any surprises you embraced? If so, please share what they were. MIA: Well, everything was astonishing to me. From the results I obtained from my imagination and new techniques of experimentation to finally taking the step to sharing and posting online, to submitting for publication…to being awarded, to being approached by an art gallery…never imagined such a personal project would get positive responses and feedback. However, I don’t want to be complacent, I wish to keep learning new techniques, try something new, in essence keeping the original project but keep growing with it as a photographer and as a woman. Maturing. I’ve always been an imaginative person ever since I was little. TPL: Do you think projects are something photographers should consider doing? What is their value? Have they helped you grow as an artist? If so, how? MIA: I humbly recommend to any photographer to have a personal project. It doesn’t matter what the subject matter is. It’s a positive endeavor and along the way, photographers will realize their project evolves because we’re evolving, we’re constantly evolving as photographers and as human beings. It’s like documenting your own journey as a photographer. TPL: What do you want your photographs to inspire in other people? What is their “takeaway”? What is your “takeaway”? MIA: Emotions, to evoke a gamut of emotions, it’s in the eye of the beholder. The viewer’s responses are varied. My work was described as dark, unorthodox, creative, artistic and even avant-garde, spooky…it doesn’t matter how it’s perceived; the most important thing is to inspire emotion in others. TPL: What inspires your unique visual storytelling? Do you have a specific message you wish to reveal to the viewer? Or is there no intention, leaving the view to draw their own conclusions? MIA: I wish the viewer to experience their own emotions. My hope is that the viewers will get some comfort at dealing with their own feelings, a sort of therapeutic experience. Releasing their own negative feelings and emotions. The thought that I could ever help someone do that would be tremendous. TPL: Where do you find your inspiration to create? When do you feel most inspired? MIA: I’ve always been an imaginative person ever since I was little. My parents and teachers would often complain about my head being in the clouds. I used to daydream a lot, fantastic stories in my mind. I sometimes think it just comes from my dreams, unconsciously. As far as inspiration, I can get inspired by an ordinary flower, for instance, that most people don’t have time to notice. The light, the mood of the moment is very important. TPL: If you could just choose one photographer to shoot alongside for a day...who would you choose? And why? Do you have a favorite quote you would like to share? MIA: Definitely Gordon Parks. “I feel it is the heart, not the eye, that should determine the content of the photograph. What the eye sees is its own. What the heart can perceive is a very different matter.” But after reflecting a bit more I would choose my father. He was a hobby photographer recording our family moments and travels. He passed away 9 years ago, and I regret not being able to share the news about my first published photo in 2019, and what would he have said? All 3 of us photographers, and all 3 of us self-taught. TPL: When you're not creating work, what else rocks your world, Mia? What would we find you doing if not photography? MIA: I enjoy cooking with fresh produce, I just love all the prep involved. I’m not a cordon bleu by any means, just simple recipes. Olive oil veggies and protein, I make lots of stews during the colder months, it’s heartwarming. Walking and hiking is another fave. Travel is a must; I love to discover other places. That's how I started my photography journey as an adult, travel photography was a way to document. As a child I used to carry my beloved Polaroid around and record family moments. I wish I had one or two of those grainy photos remaining. PORTFOLIO WEBSITE INSTAGRAM read more interviews >>> CONTOURS OF ABSENCE Where concealment unsettles recognition and ordinary spaces turn psychological, the photographs of Serhii Fett suspend identity between presence and absence. THE ART OF ATTENTION Curiosity turns portraits, objects, and places into discoveries as Len Irish reflects on a life shaped by the camera’s attention. WHERE EMOTIONS BREATHE Simple encounters Irina Sedletskaya almost missed become photographs shaped by silence, distance, uncertainty, memory, hope, and resilience. THE VILLAGE A workers’ neighbourhood becomes a living archive as Virginia Cassano photographs the people, streets, and memories that continue to shape Villaggio Piaggio. MUTABLE MORPHOGENESIS By merging scientific methodologies with photographic experimentation, Emma Varga creates images that challenge fixed distinctions between human and non-human, visible and invisible. THE ARCHITECTURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS Chad Coombs’ Polaroids are small psychological scenes where identity, memory, culture, and belief push against each other. WHERE WE BELONG Community storytelling lies at the heart of The Pictorial List’s mission, and Marlon Ramos’ photographs reflects the spirit of the place we now call home. GUIDED BY A WHISPER Guided by reflection and the quiet presence of art history, Isolda Fabregat Sanz makes photographs that resist certainty and invite the viewer to remain inside the act of looking. WHAT REMAINS, WHAT EMERGES Laetitia Heisler transforms risk, memory, and the body into layered analogue visions — feminist rituals of seeing that reveal what endures, and what quietly emerges beyond visibility. WHAT WE ARE, WHAT WE DO Culture lives where art and community meet, and in this space Alejandro Dávila’s photographs reveal the unseen labor and devotion that sustain creation. ANALOGICAL LIMBO Nicola Cappellari reminds us that the photograph’s power lies not in what it shows, but in what it leaves unsaid. THREADS OF MOROCCAN LIFE Through gestures of work and moments of community, Kat Puchowska reveals Morocco’s overlooked beauty. IT STARTED AS LIGHT…ENDED IN SHIVERS… Between intimacy and estrangement, Anton Bou’s photographs wander — restless fragments of light and shadow, mapping the fragile terrain where self unravels into sensation. WITH EYES THAT LISTEN AND A HEART THAT SEES For decades, Rivka Shifman Katvan has documented the unseen backstage world of Broadway, capturing authenticity where performance and humanity intersect. DIPTYCH DIALOGUES Through the beautiful language of diptychs, Taiwanese photographer Jay Hsu invites us into a world where quiet images speak of memory, resilience, and hope. UNKNOWN ABYSSINIA In Ethiopia, Sebastian Piatek found a new way of seeing — where architecture endures, but women in motion carry the narrative forward. THE PULSE OF THE STREET Moments vanish, yet Suvam Saha holds them still — the pulse of India’s streets captured in fragments of life that will never repeat. WHAT DO WE WANT? More than documentation, David Gray reveals the human pulse of resistance and asks us to see beyond the surface of unrest. CRACKED RIBS 2016 Cynthia Karalla opens up about the art of survival, the power of perspective, and why she believes each of us holds a monopoly on our own narrative. STREETS OF KOLKATA Ayanava Sil’s reveals Kolkata’s soul, capturing moments with empathy, presence and humility while offering deep insight into both city and self. PERIPHERAL PLACES A project by Catia Montagna that distills fleeting encounters and spatial poetics into triptychs - visual short stories that capture the in-between, where meaning often hides. POINTE-AU-CHIEN IS NOT DEAD Through Wayan Barre’s documentary, we are invited not only to see but to feel the lived realities of a community standing at the crossroads of environmental collapse and cultural survival. QUEER HAPPENED HERE Author Marc Zinaman sheds light on the valuable contributions that LGBTQ+ individuals have made to the cultural and social fabric of New York City. TRACES OF TIME Marked by an ongoing visual dialogue with time, memory, and impermanence, Zamin Jafarov’s long-term projects highlight the quiet power of observation and the emotional depth of simplicity. THERE MY LITTLE EYES Guillermo Franco’s book is an exploration of seeing beyond the obvious. His work invites us to embrace patience, curiosity, and the unexpected in a world that often rushes past the details.

Born and raised in Chennai, South India, I currently live with my family in Switzerland – our third adopted home, after Singapore and Germany. My career started in Bangalore in 1998 in business development for India’s first internet-based product company. It then transitioned to marketing and communication with the onset of motherhood. I have worked in India, Singapore, and Germany for global brands as well as local brands. I have an aptitude for analytics and creativity. My strong Asian roots, exposure to European culture, and extensive globetrotting give me a broad yet unique worldview. My website is a repository of my personal stories, mostly from globetrotting with my family. It’s a place to start a conversation using any of the stories that catch your fancy. UMA MUTHURAAMAN Born and raised in Chennai, South India, I currently live with my family in Switzerland – our third adopted home, after Singapore and Germany. My career started in Bangalore in 1998 in business development for India’s first internet-based product company. It then transitioned to marketing and communication with the onset of motherhood. I have worked in India, Singapore, and Germany for global brands as well as local brands. I have an aptitude for analytics and creativity. My strong Asian roots, exposure to European culture, and extensive globetrotting give me a broad yet unique worldview. My website is a repository of my personal stories, mostly from globetrotting with my family. It’s a place to start a conversation using any of the stories that catch your fancy. LOCATION Zurich SWITZERLAND CAMERA/S Sony Alpha 7ARV WEBSITE http://www.umamuthuraaman.com @UMA_MUTHURAAMAN FEATURES // Where the Waves Meet the Ocean

LONELY URBAN PEOPLE Belinda Corney shows us her love of light, shadow and reflections, capturing solitary people within their environment. LONELY URBAN PEOPLE August 24, 2020 INTERVIEW PHOTOGRAPHY Belinda Corney INTERVIEW Melanie Meggs Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link SHARE Have you ever wondered what it takes to turn a love of photography into a life-long passion? For Australian-born Belinda Corney, the answer is simple – a single street photography workshop in London. With just one introduction to the art form, Belinda was hooked and has never looked back. Originally from the beautiful Whitsunday region of Queensland, Australia, Belinda relocated to London in 2017 and discovered street photography. Finding an artistic outlet she had been missing for a long time, Belinda has since explored the city with her camera and captured images that show her love of light, shadow and reflections. From captivating solo figures to silhouettes in the unique light of the city, Belinda’s work captures the beauty of human interaction within their environment. This collection of images is a testament to her eye for detail and appreciation of interesting shapes. Join us as we explore Belinda’s journey in street photography, learning along the way just how she has managed to turn an experiment into a lifelong passion. It's an honour to be able to make a good photograph of anyone, and it’s a great privilege. It's the only tool that will stop time itself. - Jill Freedman “I watched the documentary EVERYBODY STREET for the first time last year and Jill Freedman was one of the photographers featured and what she said stuck with me. This whole documentary is full of some pretty inspirational and motivating stuff, I highly recommend it to anyone who has an interest in documentary or street photography!” IN CONVERSATION WITH BELINDA CORNEY THE PICTORIAL LIST: Belinda please tell us about yourself. When did you start getting interested in photography? BELINDA CORNEY: I am originally from Airlie Beach, Australia and moved to London in 2004. I currently work as a Graphic Designer and photography is a much loved hobby. I have always enjoyed taking photos but had no specific genre I gravitated towards. What piqued my interest in photography was a 2003 documentary called Dreamlives about photographers Trent Parke and Narelle Autio. You can also follow their work @chillioctopus. I got caught up in their passion and exuberance for chasing the amazing Australian light and that perfect moment. This documentary inspired me to go out buy my first SLR camera, then I came to London and this is when my love of shadow and light started to translate into my photography. My interest in street photography came much later after participating in a workshop with Joshua K. Jackson @joshkjack and Craig Whitehead @sixstreetunder in 2017. This workshop instantly kick-started my love of getting out and photographing the amazing city I live in. TPL: Where do you find your inspiration? BC: Instagram, YouTube, documentaries, books, but mostly when I am out and about exploring London, you see a scene or location and it inspires you to create something from it. TPL: What do you want to express through your photography? And what are some of the elements you always try to include in your photographs? BC: I am drawn to the interesting shapes that shadow and light create, as well as capturing the interaction of human beings, usually solitary or in silhouette, within their environment. I do love a sense of mystery, it developed in college and I haven’t been able to shake it! TPL: Do you have any favourite artists or photographers you would like to share with us, and the reason for their significance? BC: The artists Edward Hopper and Jeffrey Smart were big influences during college. I was drawn to how they portray lonely urban vistas and isolated individuals. Magnum photographer Trent Parke who I mentioned earlier. I especially love his Dream/Life series. I was drawn to how he has captured the franticness of city life, but how it also conveys a sense of isolation that can come with living in a large city. There are also so many great photographers who inspire me on a daily basis via Instagram: Mavis CW - @onechapter, Mark Fearnley - @mark.fearnley, Josh Edgoose - @spicy.meatball, Eric Kogan - @erickogan, Nina Welch-Kling - @ninakling, Mo Barzegar - @mo.barzegar, Hiroshi - @hiro_ig101, Sara Melhuish - @swendeluk to name a few...there are so many! TPL: Has your style of shooting changed since you first started? BC: A little. I am still drawn to light and shadow, but I do try to take a few more typically candid shots here and there looking for interesting moments and faces. I am not very good at it but it is fun! TPL: Where is your favourite place to photograph? BC: I love brutalist architecture, so Barbican and the Southbank Centre in London are favourite spots of mine, I enjoy capturing moments in these spaces and along the Southbank itself. I also love the Tate Modern which is another iconic landmark in London, it’s a beautiful building and space to photograph in and around. I am drawn to the interesting shapes that shadow and light create, as well as capturing the interaction of human beings, usually solitary or in silhouette, within their environment. TPL: How does the equipment you use help you in achieving your vision in your photography? Do you have a preferred lens/focal length? What would you say to someone wanting to start out in your genre of photography? BC: I have the Fujifilm X-T2. I find the tactile nature of the dials and aperture ring helped me fully understand the relationship between ISO, shutter speed and aperture, but the rest is on me! My 50mm f2 is my preferred lens at the moment. I am trying to use my 23mm f2 more but I do neglect it as jumping between the two can be quite jarring due to the difference in focal length! For someone wanting to start out in street photography, I would say always have your camera with you. Also, have your camera on and the lens cap off so it is ready to use, you don't want to be fumbling with your camera and miss the shot! It is only since I have been doing this that I have noticed my photography style improve. You will end up taking a lot of photos and only one or two may be good out of the hundreds you do take, but when you get that shot you are proud of it makes all your efforts worthwhile and encourages to you keep going. TPL: Do you prefer to photograph alone or with friends? BC: I find photographing on my own more relaxing, you can just wander and lose yourself in a walk around London. But I do enjoy meeting up with fellow photographers every now and then, it’s fun to have a walk and a chat and bounce ideas and compositions of each other. I have met some lovely photographers through photo walks and meetups here in London. TPL: Have you ever been involved in the artistic world before photography? BC: I studied Visual Arts majoring in illustration and printmaking in college, I also used to draw a lot, but when I came to London I just stopped. TPL: Are there any special projects you are currently working on? BC: Not at the moment. I have thought about creating a zine, I am a terrible procrastinator though! TPL: What are some of your goals as an artist? Where do you see yourself or hope to see yourself in five years? BC: I am not great at setting myself goals, but in five years I hope to be back in Australia. I would love to set up a studio of some sort and get back into my printmaking, perhaps even creating prints from photos I have taken over the years. TPL: “When I am not out photographing, I (like to)... Meet up with friends, walk, but I normally always have my camera with me when I do this! I do love to lose myself in a good book or TV series, I have been doing a lot of this during lockdown." PORTFOLIO INSTAGRAM read more interviews >>> CONTOURS OF ABSENCE Where concealment unsettles recognition and ordinary spaces turn psychological, the photographs of Serhii Fett suspend identity between presence and absence. THE ART OF ATTENTION Curiosity turns portraits, objects, and places into discoveries as Len Irish reflects on a life shaped by the camera’s attention. WHERE EMOTIONS BREATHE Simple encounters Irina Sedletskaya almost missed become photographs shaped by silence, distance, uncertainty, memory, hope, and resilience. THE VILLAGE A workers’ neighbourhood becomes a living archive as Virginia Cassano photographs the people, streets, and memories that continue to shape Villaggio Piaggio. MUTABLE MORPHOGENESIS By merging scientific methodologies with photographic experimentation, Emma Varga creates images that challenge fixed distinctions between human and non-human, visible and invisible. THE ARCHITECTURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS Chad Coombs’ Polaroids are small psychological scenes where identity, memory, culture, and belief push against each other. WHERE WE BELONG Community storytelling lies at the heart of The Pictorial List’s mission, and Marlon Ramos’ photographs reflects the spirit of the place we now call home. GUIDED BY A WHISPER Guided by reflection and the quiet presence of art history, Isolda Fabregat Sanz makes photographs that resist certainty and invite the viewer to remain inside the act of looking. WHAT REMAINS, WHAT EMERGES Laetitia Heisler transforms risk, memory, and the body into layered analogue visions — feminist rituals of seeing that reveal what endures, and what quietly emerges beyond visibility. WHAT WE ARE, WHAT WE DO Culture lives where art and community meet, and in this space Alejandro Dávila’s photographs reveal the unseen labor and devotion that sustain creation. ANALOGICAL LIMBO Nicola Cappellari reminds us that the photograph’s power lies not in what it shows, but in what it leaves unsaid. THREADS OF MOROCCAN LIFE Through gestures of work and moments of community, Kat Puchowska reveals Morocco’s overlooked beauty. IT STARTED AS LIGHT…ENDED IN SHIVERS… Between intimacy and estrangement, Anton Bou’s photographs wander — restless fragments of light and shadow, mapping the fragile terrain where self unravels into sensation. WITH EYES THAT LISTEN AND A HEART THAT SEES For decades, Rivka Shifman Katvan has documented the unseen backstage world of Broadway, capturing authenticity where performance and humanity intersect. DIPTYCH DIALOGUES Through the beautiful language of diptychs, Taiwanese photographer Jay Hsu invites us into a world where quiet images speak of memory, resilience, and hope. UNKNOWN ABYSSINIA In Ethiopia, Sebastian Piatek found a new way of seeing — where architecture endures, but women in motion carry the narrative forward. THE PULSE OF THE STREET Moments vanish, yet Suvam Saha holds them still — the pulse of India’s streets captured in fragments of life that will never repeat. WHAT DO WE WANT? More than documentation, David Gray reveals the human pulse of resistance and asks us to see beyond the surface of unrest. CRACKED RIBS 2016 Cynthia Karalla opens up about the art of survival, the power of perspective, and why she believes each of us holds a monopoly on our own narrative. STREETS OF KOLKATA Ayanava Sil’s reveals Kolkata’s soul, capturing moments with empathy, presence and humility while offering deep insight into both city and self. PERIPHERAL PLACES A project by Catia Montagna that distills fleeting encounters and spatial poetics into triptychs - visual short stories that capture the in-between, where meaning often hides. POINTE-AU-CHIEN IS NOT DEAD Through Wayan Barre’s documentary, we are invited not only to see but to feel the lived realities of a community standing at the crossroads of environmental collapse and cultural survival. QUEER HAPPENED HERE Author Marc Zinaman sheds light on the valuable contributions that LGBTQ+ individuals have made to the cultural and social fabric of New York City. TRACES OF TIME Marked by an ongoing visual dialogue with time, memory, and impermanence, Zamin Jafarov’s long-term projects highlight the quiet power of observation and the emotional depth of simplicity. THERE MY LITTLE EYES Guillermo Franco’s book is an exploration of seeing beyond the obvious. His work invites us to embrace patience, curiosity, and the unexpected in a world that often rushes past the details.

PICTORIAL STORY 4320 MINUTES WITHOUT COLOR Moving between photography and narration, Mohammed Nahi traces a period in which sight could no longer be assumed as reliable, and attention shifted toward memory and duration. February 8, 2026 PICTORIAL STORY PHOTOGRAPHY Mohammed Nahi STORY Mohammed Nahi INTRODUCTION Melanie Meggs SHARE Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link 4320 Minutes Without Color is a photographic and written work by Algerian photographer Mohammed Nahi that examines perception at the moment visual certainty begins to falter. Structured around a defined duration, the project does not advance a narrative of loss or recovery. Instead, it maintains attention on a suspended interval, one in which seeing becomes unreliable and experience must be renegotiated in real time. Developed following a temporary corneal injury, the work marks a deliberate shift in Mohammed’s photographic approach. The camera is no longer employed to stabilize the world or to confirm what is visible. It functions instead as a means of negotiating instability. Images resist clarity, favouring partial focus, tonal ambiguity, and spatial hesitation. These decisions are not stylistic deviations, but methodological ones, aligned with a period in which vision itself could not be assumed. By removing chromatic information, Mohammed foregrounds the fragility of visual interpretation and the psychological weight carried by contrast, shadow, and proximity. The images hold moments of suspension, where recognition remains unresolved. The accompanying narrative neither explains nor contextualizes the photographs; it extends their internal logic. Time is treated as elastic rather than sequential. While the title asserts numerical precision, the experience described unfolds in durations that expand, contract, and lose coherence. 4320 Minutes Without Color positions photography as a practice of attention when visual certainty withdraws. What follows is Mohammed’s own account — an unfolding of images and words shaped by duration rather than event, written from inside the interval itself, where perception loosens, time shifts, and seeing must be relearned moment by moment. I did not lose my sight abruptly. There was no single moment to point at, no dramatic fracture. Vision withdrew quietly, almost politely, as if it did not wish to alarm me. At first, I distrusted the experience. I blamed exhaustion, light, dust. But soon, color itself began to hesitate. Reds softened. Blues thinned. The world did not vanish, it became uncertain. Those 4320 minutes unfolded slowly, pressing their weight into every ordinary gesture. When sight weakens, the body learns to listen. Footsteps grow louder. Air gains texture. Light is no longer something seen, but something sensed against the skin. I began to move carefully, measuring space with memory rather than confidence. Familiar places lost their authority. Distances stretched unpredictably. Walls appeared where I did not expect them. The certainty I had always assigned to vision dissolved. Photography entered this moment not as a profession, but as a necessity. I was no longer photographing what I saw. I was photographing what I could not fully trust. Time, during those days, abandoned its logic. Minutes expanded into long corridors of waiting. Nights felt endless, while days slipped by without form. Appointments, silence, and internal negotiations replaced routine. I became acutely aware of how much our sense of stability depends on uninterrupted sight. When vision falters, identity trembles alongside it. The camera, once an extension of my eye, became an extension of doubt. I stopped seeking clarity. Sharpness felt dishonest. Instead, I allowed blur to enter the frame, not as an effect, but as a condition. Shadows grew dominant. Subjects drifted out of focus or escaped the frame entirely. These images were not meant to explain my experience; they were meant to inhabit it. Black and white emerged naturally, almost inevitably. Color felt excessive, even intrusive. Its absence mirrored my internal state, a world reduced to essentials, stripped of decoration, governed by uncertainty. Contrast became emotional rather than optical. White was not hope. Black was not despair. They coexisted, uneasy and unresolved, just as fear and resilience coexisted within me. I chose not to photograph portraits. The body appears only indirectly through movement, through traces, through spaces left behind. This absence was deliberate. During those minutes, I did not recognize myself. I existed somewhere between before and after, fragmented and suspended. To show a face would have been false. Instead, I photographed thresholds, corridors, light barely held, figures dissolving into motion. These were not metaphors. They were realities. What unsettled me most was not the possibility of permanent blindness, but the realization of how unquestioningly I had trusted sight. Vision had always been my authority. Without it, I felt exposed, stripped of certainty, forced into vulnerability. Yet within that vulnerability, something unexpected surfaced: awareness. I began to notice how the world reveals itself beyond sight. Sound, rhythm, texture, memory all stepped forward. Silence gained weight. Darkness carried information. I learned that seeing is not the same as perceiving, and that perception is never neutral. It is shaped by fear, expectation, and desire. In this context, photography became an act of resistance. An insistence on remaining present when presence itself felt fragile. Each image in 4320 Minutes Without Color functions less as a photograph than as a pause. A hesitation. A question left deliberately open. The work refuses narrative closure because the experience itself offered none. Recovery, when it arrived, was gradual and uncertain. Color did not return triumphantly. It crept back cautiously, as if testing whether it was welcome. Even after vision stabilized, something remained altered. I no longer trust clarity the way I once did. Sharp images feel suspicious. Certainty feels temporary. This project is not solely about loss, but about what emerges in its aftermath: a slower gaze, heightened sensitivity, and a deeper respect for fragility. The 4320 minutes named in the title are both exact and meaningless. They measure something that cannot truly be quantified. They mark a suspended state, a liminal space where identity, perception, and time loosen their grip. In naming them, I do not seek control over the experience, but acknowledgment of its weight. This work invites the viewer not to look harder, but to look differently. To accept discomfort. To remain ambiguous. To recognize that seeing is not an absolute right, but a fragile privilege. The images ask for no sympathy and offer no resolution. They stand as quiet witnesses to a moment when the world slipped out of focus and revealed its most honest form not as it appears, but as it is felt. 4320 Minutes Without Color is a testimony of presence during uncertainty. A visual echo of a body learning how to inhabit the world again. It is not a declaration of strength, but an admission of fragility and within that fragility, a deeper kind of awareness. © Mohammed Nahi © Mohammed Nahi © Mohammed Nahi © Mohammed Nahi © Mohammed Nahi © Mohammed Nahi © Mohammed Nahi © Mohammed Nahi © Mohammed Nahi © Mohammed Nahi © Mohammed Nahi © Mohammed Nahi © Mohammed Nahi © Mohammed Nahi © Mohammed Nahi © Mohammed Nahi 4320 Minutes Without Color leaves us with a sustained awareness of perception as something provisional, shaped by interruption, memory, and adaptation. Mohammed Nahi does not reclaim vision as authority; he approaches it with caution. Clarity is no longer neutral. Sharpness no longer guarantees truth. What lingers is not the absence of color, but the knowledge it produced. A slower gaze. A heightened sensitivity to what is partial, uncertain, and unresolved. In this sense, 4320 Minutes Without Color does not conclude an experience; it marks a shift in how experience is held. It asks the viewer to carry that attentiveness forward, aware that vision is never guaranteed, and that perception, once unsettled, is never entirely restored to innocence. view Mohammed Nahi's portfolio Instagram >>> The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the text belong solely to the author/s and are not necessarily shared by The Pictorial List. read more stories >>> THE LIFE WITHIN THE MOUNTAIN Ten years after first seeing Larung Gar, Jing Wei returns to a changed mountain, finding continuity in faith, memory and the lives held within it. 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JEEVAN AKASH JAYAVARTHANAN I make my photos by walking, watching, and spending more time in a place than I need to. I don’t plan shots or follow a set idea. I arrive, take my time, and let things happen naturally. Most of my photos come from moments that seem ordinary at first. I work by instinct, paying attention to light, movement, and how a place feels, rather than looking for big or dramatic scenes. I’m interested in the small, in-between moments when people relax and just go about their lives. I didn’t come from formal art training, so photography is a way for me to learn. Each walk teaches me patience and how to better understand people and their surroundings. I’m less focused on big moments and more on quiet expressions that reveal something over time. Photography, for me, is less about capturing moments and more about staying with them long enough for something honest to surface. LOCATION INDIA CAMERA/S Canon EOS R10, Canon EOS77d @JEEV.JAYPG FEATURES // Where the Music Begins