ARTIST'S STATEMENT

The endless savannahs and the wildlife of East Africa have inhabited my dreams since my earliest childhood. Now through the images I continue to follow those dreams and I try to render eternal the moments I am lucky enough to witness.

I photograph trying to capture and convey the emotions that I feel in front of the beauty and the majesty of the animals, the places, the cloudy skies, the rocky outcrops, the infinite space all around. Lately I photograph primarily in black and white. I love how the animals are almost removed from the current flow of time and space and their emotions stripped bare. I seek to establish an emotional connection between subject and viewer by looking for those moments and atmospheres where animals’ and viewers’ feelings align. However, I am still also attracted by the warm colours of Africa, the early lights, the morning mist and the dust storm, the beautiful skies at sunrise or sunset.

Besides capturing moments in their lives, I also love to photograph animals completely immersed in their habitat and to convey their wild spirit.

I exclusively photograph animals that are completely wild and free in their natural environment. While doing it my priority is always that of not disturbing them, not interfering with their lives and damaging their habitat. I let them get used to my presence and most of the time they eventually come close to me on their own choice. I feel that this is the only way to have a glimpse into their intmacy, into their secret life. Only by behaving like this they let you see the world through their eyes and occasionally frame their emotions in an image.

My images are faithful representations of reality and the natural scene, without any digital alteration. In my images I don’t add or remove elements digitally, I don’t replace backgrounds or skies. Images are therefore completely genuine. Certainly I post-process my images extensively to fully realize their emotional impact, or convert them to black and white using advanced techinquests, but never altering in the essence the small frame of reality that I captured. Obviously this approach requires much more time, dedication, patience, endurance, committment, knowledge and respect for nature than people who manipulate their images artificially on the computer.

For me spending time surrounded by nature waiting for a moment that maybe will never happen, or under a dramatic sky watching a wild creature is a privilege and an immense joy, and is probably the ultimate goal of my photographic journey.

Nairobi, January 20th 2020

Federico Veronesi