Leonarda

Like any artist, I am interested in form, line, volume, texture, and colour. But, above all, I look to merge with my subject. To me, photography is about meditation: I enter a meditative state while walking the dirt paths of Adriatic islands or the Australian bush, and in the heightened state of my mind, things just appear, spontaneously manifest in front of me. I rarely look for them and they simply present themselves to me. In that sense, my photography is about immersion: it is not about looking for a motif but rather being in one. Some may say that my photographs are static, non-dynamic. This precisely is my point: to explore what this lack of motion does to our mind, how it relaxes our usual desire to go places rather than just being in them. I do not take photographs of people because, to me, people often seem to be a distraction from the simplicity of nature and our higher modes of existence.

 

            American photographer Brett Weston (1911-1993) said that, "unless a landscape is invested with a sense of mystery; it is no better than a postcard...". I hope that the viewers of my photographs will discover that sense of mystery in the landscapes I have engaged with. The vastness of the Universe is represented in my images of the sheer expanse of the sky, the sea, the open plains... Its miniature versions can be found in my micro studies of human-made surfaces such as walls, doors, pavements, windows, etc., as well as humanoid faces carved into rock by nature. I want to "wow" my viewer but not with bright colours and stunningly beautiful postcard images. I want to "wow" my viewer by a sudden recognition that even a simple, everyday encounter with "small" things can make us appreciate how beautiful and special this world of ours—and our existence in it—are. I also want to encourage my viewers to observe the world around themselves in a similar meditative fashion, so that my images bring a more tangible and direct benefit to people's lives.

 

I do not use Photoshop to manipulate my images because I do not believe that humans can ever surpass Nature's creations either in the purity and simplicity of their spontaneous arising or in Nature's lack of conceited intention to achieve a surprising or larger-than-life effect. The best art is the one which does not strive towards anything but just is: the humility truly possessed only by Nature.