It is said that one night, in the middle of a snowstorm in New York City, Alfred Stieglitz came across a man who was watering both of the horses of his carriage. He thought to himself: "A human element in the city" and so he photographed the scene.
All this brings us back to the dawning of photography, with images like "The Terminal" (1893) or another photograph very dear to Stieglitz as well, "Steerage" (1907), in which the beauty of the image and the human element serve to retain the spontaneity of life. I would say that since that time to nowadays for those who like this photographic way like Mirko´s to make photos or cover a certain subject, emotion and enjoyment are intact as they are immersed in the flow of life in the streets.
I've known Mirko for a handful of years and I know that he is a self-taught photographer; nevertheless, he soon became familiar with photographic techniques and the corresponding equipment. But he derives the most of his pleasure from being among the crowd, from impromptu encounters with people and places, from candid photos, from an intimacy that eludes.
There's a sort of ancestral memory in those who make photographs that seek symbolical and spiritual richness in images. For one born in a small town in the provinces, the shift from a centuries-old rural culture to a constantly changing landscape dominated by the tourist industry is full of stimuli. In this sense, there is a strong spiritual link that Mirko shares with a photographer and a fellow townsman of his: The unfortunately departed Marco Pesaresi
It's beyond question that Mirko knows how to disengage himself from the visual stereotypes of provincial life. He knows that every picture has its own story and that it is a window onto a running surface that leads from the particular to the universal.
Besides, we had already been taught about that by Mario Giacomelli, who from the country reached out to the world and taught us the enchantment, the authenticity and the poetry of the provinces :"...the poets I love are those who managed to photograph by means of words..."
As a viewer, I know that a good photo is a matter of harmony and also a state of grace: that photo by Mirko showing the girl in a little white dress running along the pier with its black chessboard squares while two men in the distance gaze into infinity, has something romantic and magical, on par with the angelic light in the movie "Wings of Desire" [Der Himmel über Berlin] |
