Elegia Fantastica - Hardcover

by Emanuele Scorcelletti (Photographer), Cyril Drouhet (Foreword by), Denis Curti (Preface by)

"When I picture my region, I simply look, I don't think: I let my heart direct me and life unfold. This country awakens in me a deep emotion. There, time stops. I become a child again, everything amazes me. This is timeless Italy", explains Emanuele Scorcelletti.

Emanuele Scorcelletti's book thus presents a deep and meticulous photographic journey in black and white that touches on one of the most current reflections of contemporary man on the importance of places as fundamental elements to define his personal approach of existence.

The Marches are therefore the protagonists of research on the notion of place, studied in the relationships it establishes with the individuals who live there, who have lived there or who have forged strong ties with it.

As the title of the project suggests, the book is offered as a poetic composition which, as in the most refined elegies, is divided into two parts: that of memory and that of vision, the first melancholy and evocative, the second fiery and exalted. Classic images with balanced geometries characterize the first section of the book, while the shots in the second section are loaded with expressionistic and vibrant tones.

Author Biography

Born of an Italian mother from Friuli and a father born in Jesi, in the Marches, Emanuele Scorcelletti returns with this project to the lands and roots of his paternal family for a tribute carried by great emotion. This emotion is the one that has attached him since his childhood to the passion for the image, first the cinema of Fellini, which his mother venerated, then the photography, that of Mario Giacomelli that he met in Senigallia, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Jacques-Henri Lartigue, his masters.

Member of the Gamma photo agency from 1989 to 2009, internationally recognized for his photos of film and fashion stars, he received in 2003 the prestigious World Press prize in the "Arts and Culture" category for his black and white photo of Sharon Stone walking the carpet at the Cannes Film Festival.

But make no mistake about it, what moves Emanuele is above all otherness and everything that deeply affects people, "places and people", whether documenting the Carnival of Venice (in its early stages), a tree planting program in the Tamil Nadu region of India for the French Yves Rocher Foundation (2017), the General States of Women for French ELLE Magazine (2010) or the relationship between man and nature (exhibition Equus in La Gacilly Festival, France, 2017).

Cyril Drouhet is director of photography of the Figaro Magazine, part of one of the most important French media. He is also a curator.

Simona Cardinali is an Art Historian at the Civic Museums in Palazzo Pianetti, Jesi (Italy).

Denis Curti is director of the monthly "Il Fotografo" and artistic director of the "Casa dei tre Oci" in Venice, artistic director of the Photography Festival of Capri.