Claudio Rasano, born in Basel in 1970, has received prestigious awards for his photographs, including the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize from the National Gallery in London, the European Publishers Award for Photography, and the American Photo Images of the Year. His work has been exhibited internationally, including at the National Portrait Gallery in London, in the Hasselblad Masters finalist exhibition, Photo Book Days at Deichtorhallen Hamburg, the Australian Centre for Photography in Sydney, PHotoEspaña in Madrid, and the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh.
When Rasano photographs people, he shows his counterpart without artificial falsification, mostly in real light. It is important to him to portray portraits authentically, to show them in their environment.
Claudio Rasano lives and works in Basel.
About ‘South Africa, everyone live in the same place like before’ – words by Claudio Rasano:
My series shows the different side of life in South Africa using portraits and landscapes. My portraits are frontal taken at eye level, looking directly and ahead, the face cast in shadow showing a strong and determined expression.The portraits are evident that the person is the subject of interest reflecting the face of the person using no background to provide context or embellishment. Besides the portraits, landscapes also form part of my series: houses and cottages shown as a shell and then expanded to reflect the vast expanses of the Cape Town and Johannesburg landscapes. What connects the photographs is the impressive natural light of South Africa. It testifies to an immediacy, an instantaneous and honest encounter that places the object at the center. A lot of my work seems to explore the relationship between spaces and humans. This series of photos will often explore the subject within the space and the space as the subject itself. I think I manage to capture some of the personality that these spaces hold in contrast with that of the actual person. Though they may seem empty they are truly full.. full of personality and history. My work turns always around human beings. I try to show my counterpart without any artistic falsification the way the really are. My tool, the camera, is always discrete, never obtrusive, truly honest. I only take pictures when the people agree.
My work is focused around the human stories of an area, but in many cases it is not just the person that is of interest. The composition of many of my images, even when portraits, provides a snapshot.
People are the focal point I love to explore the relationship between spaces and humans, the subject within the space and the space as the subject itself. I work with people from similar backgrounds, circumstances and experiences – environmental portraits and landscapes depicting a quiet anthropological commentary. It is important for me to see that there is a strong relationship between environmental portraits and landscape images.
