Stuck in the Picture #9 Gabriele Lopez


Let’s start with a small presentation who is Gabriele?

A man born in 1974 that is searching and questioning.

When did you start taking pictures? Do you remember what it felt like?

If we exclude a Polaroid I had as a gift it was with a simple 35mm point and shoot when i was young like 13 or 14 and I started to take moments with my friends about living in the periphery of Milan. I always had diaries, it was a pursuance of that. A memory.

Which authors have influenced you? If there are any. They don’t have to be photographers, they can be directors, writers, comic book authors, musicians…

Haruki Murakami, Raymond Carver, Bukowski, Dan Fante, Chuck Palahniuk. In photography I have names too: Giacomelli, Machiel Botman being the most inspirational more than influencers…the difference is tiny but important. But is more from writing than photography in any case.

You know when you dream, you wake up, but you can’t remember the details of what you dreamed, just a persistent feeling. Do you happen to see your pictures again and feel the same elusiveness? 

It’s a sort of feeling I try to reach. I strongly believe photography alone is not appropriate to explain anything of what I really feel but sometime some coincidences work things out. It’s all about fragments of fiction and reality together. Has to be so instinctive for me.

What don’t you like about photography?

the noise.

Are you an empathetic person? 

I guess I am but I am even so selective and like to join only few people deeply that is probably seen as arrogant or unfriendly but I am a solitary person that likes few real friends with a deep knowledge.

A photo you’re particularly fond of? Show it to us.

Talking to a friend the other night, the inevitability of being a photographer came up. (let’s exclude the technical meaning and stop on the etymology of the word) On the fact that we are born photographers, all of us. Because human beings have always tried to stop time, even if only to not go mad, in an attempt to give meaning to their existence. Maybe the photographer of the century has never taken a picture in his life, never held a camera. Do you agree? Are we all born photographers?

That can be reversed that we are all painters, writers, movie makers, philosophers or historic I just guess memory is what we are made of and what makes up have some sort of balance and sense of belonging.

We are bombarded by contests, it seems that the only purpose is to appear, almost more than to produce good photography. We live in a world in which intermediaries not only convey, but create sometimes questionable standards, don’t you think that competition is at the antipodes of the concept of photography?

mixed feeling on this. Almost No one wants to be forgotten or ignored totally. The fact that I’m answering these is a proof. I never made contests of any kind cause it bores me to death, but I did many demo or sessions of different kind. Not only in photography I mean, it’s been so all my life like skateboarding or swimming or really many other things. Share is good, and until you’re talking about ambassadors, brands (there are exceptions) or influencers where the thing is really easily corruptible there’s nothing bad. But the urge to appear in a world that’s not paying attention is loaded gun for sure. It can be hard. I’ve sent submissions of things that I considered good to publishers that I respected without an answer and no attention at all. Probably the work wasn’t good enough to their standard but after all is hard even for me to look at work of people I never met or talked at. I wish that in photography a world of respectful collaboration can be reached, sometime it happens. For me giving small bach self-published stuffs to people I respect and discussing them together is enough, after all there’s nothing to win or gain, I never jump of joy for getting published. If I will ever reach a small audience where friendship, respect and a publication of an ongoing project I have from years will be ever made will be enough. For a while I’ve been close to this but it faded away, and I miss it. I am introvert I don’t like compliments or birthday wishes, pedestals, medals or these kind of insignificant things. Less is more, always.

ell me an anecdote, something curious that happened while you were shooting. 

People I’ve met, connections and answers about what was happening that became clear by seeing the contact sheets but I can’t point to a single moment but more to the wider view of it.

One or more obsessions. If you have any. 

Time, definitely is the most present. Having to do useless stuffs to survive that take away time from what’s important to me.



Thanks for the talk!

Thanks to you who have read this far! 

If you want know some more about my photography and my books you can find me here:

www.gabrielelopez.me

https://www.gabrielelopez.me/




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