Photographer #264: Paul D'Amato ~ Photography Imaging

Paul D'Amato, 1956, USA, could be called a "creative non-fiction" photographer. His photographic practice has always inhabited a space between two contradictory truths. These two truths he describes are that every image is a fiction, but that every photograph is still a representation of the subject. He believes that no picture can ever express the true complexity of the individual yet sees this as liberating. What's important is form, light, color and composition. However, the photographs still emblematically stand for the person portrayed. The truth about fiction leads to playfulness and invention, the truth about representation brings along responsibility as the picture still refers to a world that real people inhabit. His series Barrio, on the communities in Pilsen and Little Village in Chicago, was shot in a period of fourteen years and was released as a book in 2006. The following images come from the series We Shall, We Shall: Project Painting and Barrio.