PHOTOGRAPHY AS A WORK OF ART

The photography students will meet Maria Giulia Costanzo, a cinematographic portrait photographer and former student of the Accademia Italiana on Tuesday, February 4^th 2020.

Maria Giulia Costanza recounts her journey through the paths that led her to the rediscovery of photography as a work of art: from the passion for portraiture photography in the cinematographic field to the meeting with the great masters of photography Oliviero Toscani, Paolo Pellegrin and Martin Schoeller.

Maria Giulia Costanzo, born 1995, discovers photography at the age of 15 years old as a way to release and express her adolescent feelings, but only when she reaches maturity she recognises its intrinsic potential. Thus, in a moment of impulse dictated by the heart and supported by her family, she decides to study photography after high school, enrolling at the Accademia Italiana in Florence. During those years, Maria Giulia becomes increasingly more aware of the photographic medium. Comparing herself with professional figures in the field, she recognises that she has a certain affinity with portraiture.  She graduates in Photography and New Media in 2017, and decides to deepen her studies and give (for her own necessity) to her photographic language a cinematographic appeal. She then moves to Milan and passes the entry test to the “Civica Scuola di Cinema Luchino Visonti” to attend the course “Photography and Shooting”. Between the winter and spring of 2019, Maria Giulia is selected from the 8 European photographers who compete for the title ”SKY ARTS MASTER OF PHOTOGRAPHY 2019”, Talent TV on photography conducted by Oliviero Toscani, Mark Sealy and Elizabeth Biondi.

Encountering photography masters such as Oliviero Toscani, Paolo Pellegrin and Martin Schoeller, Maria Giulia rediscovers her love for photography that for a while had remained dormant. She interrupts her studies in Milan to concentrate herself on her career as a photographer, with the intention, almost an obsession, to be able to exhibit in art galleries. 

But before considering a photograph, or even more difficult, the work of a photographer as a work of art, Maria Giulia knows that there is a long way to go; often feelings of discouragement creep in, but working on herself, she regains her enthusiasm, probably a value that characterises her, thinking that it is better to add life to days, rather than days to life, and that enthusiasm is the basis for all progress.