PAUL ITALIANO: PORTFOLIO CONTEST WINNER

In the days his departure for a month in France, Paul Italiano emailed B&W an artist’s statement addressing these images from his Solitude series. He wrote: “I have sought out and made frequent visits to places where people walk or sit—where they can be alone in their thoughts. I framed each subject to show the space that has enabled them to feel alone enough for contemplation. Then, with the use of light and shadows, I have sought to help the viewer reflect on the feelings of the subject. Free from distractions, people can create their own worlds. This series looks in on these worlds.”

Italiano’s expert selection of framing devices in his pictures means as much the human stories he tells. His style is studied in the best possible way. That is to say, his photographs are considered, designed and fully intentional. While he admires the work of Garry Winogrand, Italiano creates a very different rendering of The Street than did Winogrand. These photographs were not grabbed on the run. “Planning for spontaneity” is how Italiano describes his image-hunting mindset.

For Artful Solitude, Italiano found and revisited this outdoor courtyard in a walled garden of San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art—numerous times—before capturing the scene with all the elements in place. He had previsualized a composition from this vantage point long before his photograph was realized. “This was a difficult place to shoot in,” says Italiano. “The picture needed something to make it unique…the cloudy sky was unusual. It was more often hazy or gray at that time of year.”

Italiano also found the multi-layered concrete frame for Inside the Polygon before his human subject materialized. The location is a Palo Alto underpass for both cars and pedestrians. “This space was heavily trafficked,” says Italiano, “so I had to stake out this spot and wait for an interesting figure to pass through.” Again, his patience and determination were well rewarded.

Fragments of Thought was shot at the base of the abandoned City Methodist Church in downtown Gary, Indiana. “The city’s dramatic decline followed steel manufacturing’s move overseas in the 1970s,” says Italiano. “While not in the safest of the city’s neighborhoods, the church is one of 10,000 abandoned buildings in Gary. Once magnificent, the church continues to attract curious visitors,” including this man sitting surrounded by “evidence of man.”

Lastly, we see Abstraction, perhaps the most profound realization of Italiano’s elegant merging of style, form and substance. Shot in San Francisco’s Chinatown, in this case the photographer’s lens is pointed at a storefront window reflecting the image of the seated man. The cutout Chinese letterform provides an unusually artful and candid peek at someone alone, though not lonely.

Born in Toronto, now living in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, Italiano’s work has appeared in Black & White before. His photographs of India won an Excellence Award and were featured in the August 2020 issue of the magazine. He began his career in the film business, where he says, “We always shot on film, and I learned to work within an economy of means.” He’s been a member of the SoHo Photo Group, and attended photo workshops in Palm Springs and Dischler’s in Palo Alto. In 2023 his series of skateboarders at Venice Beach, Lords of Salt, took top prize in the “Summer Sports” category in International Photo Annual’s (IPA) year-end show.

Citing Irving Penn, Daido Moriyama and film director Luis Bunuel as influences in addition to Winogrand, Italiano says, “I love the graphic qualities of black and white, and the challenge of getting the shot—of figuring out the best way to render shapes and forms through light and shadow.”

“Finding solitude,” wrote Italiano, “requires finding spaces to be away from the cacophony and chaos of crowds, and from the incessant demands of the connected world. Solitude offers the freedom to reflect, to ponder, to take inventory, or to quiet your mind in meditation.” Through this beautiful portfolio, Italiano’s photographs offer us the same freedom.