Who I am?
I'm Iuri Botticelli, born in 1986, and a photographer by passion. Daily, with my friends, colleagues and collaborators I talk, study, watch and (I do) take pictures. It is one of those visceral things that you cannot do without, that takes me to the extreme, and I follow 'til finding new things, unexplored things, in a path that is first of all inside of me, and then it's the result, perceived by who's watching.
By the way, I had the chance to work in the US in my life, so I learned English and yes, we can have a conversation, properly called. I started to take pictures with my mother's '76 Pentax MX and she told me about her way to photograph, and I tried to imitate her. Afterwards I became with gratitude sympathetic to Prof. Alfredo Mariani, and he taught me to look. Then we chased each other and left, with photography, during the long and turbulent period of world transition to digital. I accidentally ended up taking pictures to a wedding with a colleague in 2014, and both of us who were there to capture the moments of that day, we said goodbye knowing that we would continue to do it.
And here we are.
Why wedding photography?
If I wanted to meet a person in one day, I would ask to see him on his wedding day. If I wanted to understand his affections, his story and his friendships without being able to ask, I would like to see his marriage. If I wanted to get closer to a different culture ... I would like to see a wedding. Months of care, details, traditions and innovations, a meticulous beauty that goes beyond the every-day and also beyond our time, and often makes me dive back into eras that I have not lived. In this frame of perfection, when you get there, any shield falls and the essence remains. The power of emotions sweeps everything away and people is exposed for what they are, in front of those they chose to have nearby in those moments. Boom.
And you are there with the task and the vocation of gathering what happens in the moment, at best, before everything is transformed, as every wedding is a frenzied succession of unrepeatable uniqueness. Beautiful and nothing more.
I follow weddings because I can't follow anything else, and as many fields of photography intrigue me, only this falls in love with me.