Conception | ©Angelo Antelmi

Last year, Italian photographer Angelo Antelmi impressed us all by making a fork dance by simply using lighting in clever way. Now, Angelo is back and this time the fork not only dances. It plays football, it kisses, it gets married, it ages and eventually it dies. It is a much more complex story, but Angelo’s way of telling it is as simple and straightforward as ever.

“A writer I interviewed when I was working as a journalist explained to me that the only difference between a good and a bad writer is a slight difference in sensitivity,” says Angelo. “That was when I realized that I wanted to tell my stories through pictures.”

What is this particular story about?

“These images are all part of a family album. Together they form a minimalist story of life and death and rebirth. The first image shows spermatozoon teaspoons hurtling towards the ovum. The second image shows the infant being rocked in its mother’s arms. The third image shows small children playing football. Then follows adolescence. At first, the male knives are separated from the dancing female forks. But eventually they meet on a rainy night. Love explodes with passion and develops into a solid bond. Together they traverse the good and bad times of adult life and address old age with dignity. Finally, beyond the end, they find themselves together again, reunited with their childhood and ready to start a new life cycle.” (more…)

Marletta Gallery | ©Angelo Antelmi

Italian photographer Angelo Antelmi caught our attention last Christmas when he somehow managed to make an image of a fork appear vivid and interesting. Now Angelo is back with a series of portraits of art dealers.

The portraits were commissioned by the FIMA (Italian Federation of Art Dealers) which wanted to propose a new way of looking at the world of antiques. All portraits were shot in Florence, the heart of Italian art – each one depicting one of the city’s most famous art dealers.

According to Angelo, each art dealer is specialized in a certain field of antiques. The Frilli Gallery produces copies of the most important works of art for museums and collectors around the world. Chiavacci Antiques specializes in historical furniture and fittings, Salvatori Gallery in sculptures, Il Cancello Antique Shop in 19th century art, Pino Marletta Antiques in prestigious paintings for museums and international galleries, the specialty of Fratelli Gonnelli’s Gallery is valuable frames and, finally, Simone Romano Gallery has a long-standing family tradition of antique dealers specializing in prints.

“My goal was to deeply understand these peculiarities,” says Angelo. “I interviewed the dealers and studied their background and activities in order to turn the portraits into visual stories of their respective personality and business. The result is a collection of pictures in which the antique dealers step out of their ‘old’ art shops and ‘old-fashioned’ images to catch the eye of the public with empathy and humor.”

(more…)

Dancer | ©Angelo Antelmi

Where some see just a piece of cutlery, Italian photographer Angelo Antelmi sees a tool for expressing an idea. It is different way of looking at the everyday objects in our surroundings, and it is most likely that which has turned Angelo into a successful product photographer.

“Still life photography is fantastic,” says Angelo. “It is one of the few photographic activities where you cannot bluff. To create a great image, you need a great idea and great equipment, and in the end, still life images respond to only one requirement: clarity. Clarity of the concept expressed. Clarity of the image. Clarity in product visibility. And so on…” (more…)