Photography is a medium that allows us to get closer to the world, to the Other, to the world of the Other, to oneself through the world of the Other. This closeness is born in the space where identity is formed; the identity of the Other, the identity of the photographed object and one’s own identity, the photographer’s identity. Photography, by getting close to the world, creates a space where there is room for questioning; the questioning that leads to Otherness; the Otherness that is inseparable from knowledge, from knowing the other, from knowing oneself, from getting to know the other in oneself and oneself in the Other.

The meaning of photography does not lie in the originality of the object that is being photographed, or even in the photographer’s talent. It lies in the relationship between oneself and the Other, and beyond that, the relationship with the third eye, they eye that will later see the photograph. A relationship implies interaction and interaction implies influencing each other following a process of discovery and of defining the self based on the concept of otherness. Photography does not seek a closeness that will ultimately result in a complete fusion, it seeks a closeness that will maintain distance and simultaneously highlight and respect differences between oneself and the Other. Thus, photography is a medium that by getting close to the world, builds bridges and means of communication. It uses first the eye and then the image.

It is not an innocent and neutral gaze, the fragment of reality that is selected and organized results from a projection of the photographer’s memory and path, it responds to the physical action of taking the photograph. It’s not a contaminated gaze; the photographer hasn’t lost the purity of feeling. On the contrary, it’s a primitive gaze, one that constantly takes us back to our origins, a gaze that allows us to marvel at the wonders of life, to question ourselves about the world. Nothing is granted beforehand, nothing is trivial, nothing responds to a predetermined or divine order. Everything can be doubted and hence photographed. The photographic gaze is defined by the presence of the object but also by its absence, by what is not there and by what probably ought to be there or by what is concealed and ought to be exposed, either by daylight or the light of a flash.

Therefore, to take a photograph is to wander through places full of imprecise and intangible obstacles, to discover what is hidden, to get close to it. Photography doesn’t try to identify, rescue, drag or transport the unknown in order to expose it; it doesn’t point to detail in order to strip it naked, to rob it of its modesty and expose it to ridicule, but to extract its meaning, as this is where presence becomes transcendent.

 The photographic gaze digs into what is forbidden and feared, not to criticize but to give the photographed object the opportunity to reveal itself and also to rebel.   ...