I have a passion for art and my pastimes are, reading, watching movies, trekking, camping in nature, and listening to music. Photography, although started as a hobby, has become my artistic expression, a means to satisfy my artistic vision. I started taking it seriously in 2011 when I joined the Malta Institute of Professional Photography and learned how to operate a camera, but soon I started to
realize that the camera is nothing more than a tool. It is when I began researching the vision behind the photograph that I discovered that to transform an image into something more than a mere pretty picture and started looking inward instead of outward. Fine art photography is created in line with the personal vision of the photographer as an artist using the medium as a creative expression. The aim is to transmit a feeling or an emotion by creating a mood within the final image. Since I can remember I have always been fascinated by the grandiosity of our planet and beyond, I am aware of how small we really are compared to the immense landscape that surrounds us. With the help of long exposure, I am able to capture a slice of time, but not necessarily the way our eyes see. In today’s world, we are constantly bombarded with stressful situations, society has become loud, and life itself has become very fast. In this constant rush, we almost forget to live, and instead, we go on with our lives immersed in a fog of habitual behaviour, almost as if we are on autopilot. To escape from all the noise in my head I seek refuge in my photography. I try to transmit a sense of silence and stillness, a timeless feeling which cannot be captured with the naked eye. Almost as if I am trying to capture something which otherwise is invisible. Therefore, I don’t stop at just documenting the landscape, rather I try to interpret the scene in front of me and create an image that reflects my personal vision, this is what I call, creating an alternative reality, where I could escape briefly in meditation. As a fine art photographer, I know that a photograph can speak a thousand words, and it is not easy to transmit the intended feeling to the viewer, so my work is an invitation to whoever is experiencing it, to step into the scene and interpret it personally. I strongly believe that the artistic vision is not enough to capture all these emotions. The technical knowledge and the use of photographic equipment are essential in order to transform my vision to the final image on the screen and finally a print. For this reason, I use photographic filters in order to create the mood I try to evoke. Since 2018 I am supported by ©LEE Filters, a brand based in the UK, which is second to none in quality and versatility. An image is always an image, either printed or stored in a computer, but I am also a strong believer that in order to appreciate the final image, one must see his work printed; this gives a new definition to what had been envisioned. For this reason, I like to print most of my images, it takes the experience to a new level when I see my vision making it into the physical world. The brand of choice for paper is ©Ilford Galerie, a high-quality fine art paper that fully satisfies my printing preferences.
