The most beautiful tales
of photographers told by Tony Graffio.
Choosing the right character
and going deep into their experience to understand, not just the
motivations that push an author to embark on a personal and difficult
journey, but to analyse their artistic values, the professional
competence and the technical choices. Leave everything you know
behind and throw yourselves into the adventure that each of us would
have liked to live, by simply reading these pages.
Tony Graffio
interviews Edoardo Miola
T.G.: Edoardo, please introduce yourself and
explain to us who you are and what you do.
Edoardo Miola: My name is
Edoardo Miola, I’m a photographer, right now and for about a decade
I have been dedicating myself to this activity which has always been
a passion for me. Recently, I have been able to start transforming
this passion into a remunerative activity by selling my photos, by
publishing books.
I collect my images during my travels to illustrate
a new country that I am visiting, or I keep everything in my archive,
in case they can be of use some time later to organise exhibitions,
or prepare new projects.
T.G.: It seems to me that you are also an
architect…
Edoardo Miola: I am an architect by training, even if my
activity has always centred around the construction of prototypes and
models related to the world of design, architecture and science, in
the sense that I made models also for dynamic and mechanical testing:
from the plans of boats to skyscrapers for the anti-seismic testing
and things like that. I have developed my activity in a technological
field, over many years of my career, and I have been lucky to always
have top quality clients. On the professional level, I have worked
with Renzo Piano, with Aldo Rossi, with absolutely first-class
foreign architects and with loads of designers. I have lived a very
interesting and varied life, but photography has also been my latent
passion, ever since I was 14 years old. Photography was a hobby that
I am finally developing in the way I want.
T.G.: Now are you able to
live just with photography?
Edoardo Miola: At the moment I am
dedicating about 90% of my time to photography, so photography is
definitely bringing in some money. Let’s say that in this part of
my life there are by now many things that have been put in place that
allow me to not have to increase my photography by accepting
commissions that don’t interest me. I dedicate my time and energy
to the things that I like and that satisfy me personally, that
perhaps can allow me to sell some high quality prints at an adequate
price.
T.G.: Did you introduce yourself to MIA in a gallery?
Edoardo
Miola: I am here in MIA as a prospect. I would like to say “young
prospect”, but given my age it seems a little anachronistic. Jokes
aside, I am an MIA Candidate, in this year’s fair.
T.G.: Tell me a
little about the work that you are presenting.
Edoardo Miola: The
work that I’m presenting at MIA is: Tales of sand. The title lets
us understand quite a lot from the outset. I have chosen some photos
that I have taken over the last 4 years, during the trips I took
across southern Africa. All of the 11 images that I am showing here
in MIA were taken in Namibia, but the unifying theme is the sand that
in some way reclaims the human spaces, and so also abandoned objects,
abandoned businesses. This was an aspect of my theme, or rather the
desertification that advances, the sand that invades everything, but
becomes also a witness to the passing of time. Geological time is
something extremely drawn out and by comparison our lives seem
fleeting and ephemeral. Amongst the photos that I have chosen, there
is one, also chosen by My Lifestyle, that shows a relic and this ship
is given life by the shadows that makes it more visible and also more
ephemeral, a little like other naval disasters.
A relic that
decomposes on a rocky shore behaves in a different way, while the
shore shows no decline, after a hundred years human creations are
reduced to mush.
T.G.: Will we see the diamond desert in these
photographs?
Edoardo Miola: Well, the beauty of Namibia is that the
majority of the territory is a desert where they mine diamonds and
there are loads of areas, unimaginable for us Europeans, that are
“off limits”. The diamond deserts are all over the place. The
photographs I have brought here are of a ghost town in central
Namibia; there are several that you can get to; for some you need a
special permit because they are in a zone that is still pretty
productive, while this one that I photographed is one of the more
marginal ones. My exhibition tells, in part, about this abandoned
village, which in sometime around the 1930s, was completely invaded
by sand that, as we know, moves under the effect of the wind. The
dunes move and the peculiarity is to see the houses still very nicely
finished, we’re surely talking about houses that were lived in at
one time by the heads of department, or by the directors, you can
still see the doors, but they’re completely buried under two metres
of sand. The sensation you get from this vision, apart from
curiosity, is the precariousness of human life in these territories
and almost the futility of human action in the face of nature.
T.G.:
Was it difficult to reach these places and work in these conditions?
Edoardo Miola: For my own interest and passion I move around in these
areas with my fully-equipped transport. Apart from the time necessary
to reach these places, there are inevitable difficulties because of
the rugged terrain, because of the sand and also because of the
inexistence of the roads as sometimes I moved with only co-ordinates
to guide me, trying to circumnavigate the dunes too high to cross.
Also crossing the zones that are completely without any sign of
anyone having ever been there is not so easy. All of this is quite
normal in the Namibian territory and you can think of it as easily
crossable, because unlike Botswana, there are no big forests that
impede your movement. Apart from the difficulties that come about
with the breakdown of mechanical equipment, or things like that, many
places, even those off the grid, can be reached by using a type of
navigation like you use at sea, so by the co-ordinates and the route.
T.G.: Did you have a guide?
Edoardo Miola: No, I don’t use guides
because I have already spent a lot of time in these territories and I
know the area pretty well. Also I trust my capacity to adapt. I can
also rely on what I know of mechanics and of navigation. I’ve
navigated in the sea for many years.
T.G.: Are you trying to tell me
you went into the desert on your own?
Edoardo Miola: Sure, it’s
easier if there are people who trust me rather than vice versa. I
crossed the whole Namib desert and the Botswana desert, that reaches
the border of Namibia, without any particular trouble.
T.G.: I heard
though, maybe not exactly where you were, that in the diamond desert,
if you happen to blow a tyre and you stop for too long, helicopters
arrive fast and tell you that you must leave, maybe also threatening
to do you not very nice things to you. Is this true?
Edoardo Miola:
Sure, there are clear rules to follow that are indicated, I mean it’s
difficult to arrive in one of these zones without realising it. There
are real barriers, there are officials that give you forms to fill
out. You have to write your details and the details of the people in
the vehicle and you are given a time limit within which you must be
out of the area. Stopping is not allowed, getting out of the vehicle
is not allowed and at the next check point they make sure these rules
have been respected. I’ve never been searched, or anything. It’s
a formality. Sure, you need to respect the rules because they’re
really careful. If they see that a 90km stretch of road is taking you
more than an hour, an hour and a half, then they take steps.
T.G.:
They don’t mess around…
Edoardo Miola: No they absolutely don’t.
There is an area around orange, at the border with South Africa, that
is really exploited and this 90km stretch must absolutely be covered
in the given time. I stopped just long enough to roll down my window
and take a shot of an eland antelope that I liked, but I stayed
within the time limits. Basically, stopping is forbidden.
T.G.: Did
you have any trouble with your photographic equipment? Maybe with the
sand, the temperature or something else?
Edoardo Miola: The problem
of dust is present in all the African territories because the
majority of roads are unsealed and the superfine quartz, abrasive
dust is ever present and gets everywhere. During the day it is
impossible to think about cleaning the objective and forget about the
sensor. When push comes to shove and I’m at the limit and I
absolutely have to clean the sensor, I try to do it at daybreak
before the first breeze starts blowing. Otherwise, in the dark, even
at 4 am if you turn on a light you see those infinitesimal crystals
flying everywhere. Unfortunately my objectives are full of this dust.
By now my camera is used to it, there are moments in which the air is
more electric and this is a disaster because you take the photos
through the veil of dust on the sensor. Luckily there are systems to
clean this up, even in post-production, but thinking to have a clean
camera, even if you keep the objectives still and use multiple
bodies, it is still an illusion. I keep my camera in my bag while
travelling but it is inevitable that the bag statically collects the
sand and the dust and when you open it there is a cloud. You live in
constant contact with the dust.
T.G.: Do you think that using
analogue equipment would create less problems?
Edoardo Miola: Using
analogue equipment that has a very robust mechanism can help, but the
dust would get in there anyway. When it deposits on the film it makes
beautiful lines because the rewinding of the film will do some damage
for sure. In my opinion it is still possible to use digital cameras
as long as there are no problems recharging the batteries. Perhaps I
felt more need for mechanical camera bodies when I was going around
Nepal because I didn’t have any way of recharging the batteries as
I was above 4000, 4500 metres. In that situation I constructed a
solar powered recharger with a really big battery, I put it on the
trestle and so I created my own energy, also for the computer. The
analogue system, in my opinion, is an anachronistic system for
everything that is post-production. In spite of this I’m really
fond of it and I still use the Leitz objectives from my old Leica M6
and M5 on Monochrom, but with the digital. In the same way I use the
old Nikon Ais optics from the F3 with the Nikon digital reflexes.
T.G.: Seeing as you’ve brought up the Leica Monochrom, I’d like
you to tell me how you find it. Pros and cons.
Edoardo Miola: I find
the Monochrom exceptional for some specific aspects and I have found
it problematic for others. The sensor gets dirty really easily and
there’s no electronic cleaning system. The sensor, not having the anti aliasing filter, is more delicate than a normal sensor, both on the
MP and on the Monochrom that’s fantastic, above all for the output.
I’ve taken some fantastic photos in terms of quality and the
sorting out the files takes very little. The 19 million pixels, in
reality correspond to a definition that is almost 4 times better. I
can say though that I have also printed these also in large format.
It’s really nice because it fits in your pocket but I can’t put
all my faith in this camera because after all I might need other
types of performance that, unfortunately, this camera can’t offer.
It’s also really slow in terms of file acquisition times, unlike
the MP, but every system has its own strong points.
T.G.: Can you
tell me the story of the shipwreck in the desert?
Edoardo Miola: I
had wanted to photograph the shipwreck in the desert for a long time,
and it was in a special moment that I had the time needed to take the
flight over that zone. The planes take off from around 200 km away
from the skeleton coast, a place, where just to get there, you need
special permits from the ministry. I had always only had local
permits, which couldn’t get me all the way to that place over land.
I knew that that wreck was particular, I had already seen it on
google and I had seen some images, but in my opinion it could show
itself at its best only at sundown. I had battle with the pilot to
convince him to leave later than usual. Normally the private flights
left at 2 pm, while we left after 4 pm to reach the place with the
favourable light. Explaining to the pilot that if I hadn’t been
above the wreck at the appointed hour I would have taken a useless
photo, I managed to get what I wanted.
The shadows then told all the
boat’s story, because it was the shadows that spoke of the subject,
not the subject itself.
T.G.: So does some kind of photographic
tourism exist to go and photograph this ship?
Edoardo Miola: For this
site in particular, no, even if it is a really fascinating location.
There are people, though, with their list of places to see and
photograph and from this point of view, so surely a photographic
tourism exists.
Tourism in itself exists, there are even flights you
can do in hot air balloons, limited to the possibilities that a hot
air balloon can offer. There are pilots that are perfectly happy to
fly people who want to see these beautiful places from on high. I put
together a videoclip with images of mine that I would advise
everyone to take a look at, to give an idea of the places you can
visit in that part of the world.
In: If the sand could speak the colours of the sand and the variety of the forms of the dunes,
that says everything.
T.G.: Do you fancy speaking about the prints?
Are you satisfied? Who is your printer?
Edoardo Miola: Certainly.
Robert Berné has done all the prints for me and he, apart from being
a brilliant printer, one of the best, has inevitably become a friend
because when you work together and you have the passion and the taste
in a certain way, above all, you put in something of yourselves. At
that point, you discover, you know each other and you easily become
friends. We’re talking about ciglèe prints on top quality paper. I
chose a sepia tone because I liked that the tale was almost detached
from time, as if the print were from a different epoch. We’re not
talking about some affectation to copy the rendering of an old Agfa
paper, but it was just to separate the image from time.
T.G.: How
much are your works sold for and how many copies of each are
produced?
Edoardo Miola: The prints that I have brought here to MIA
have all been produced in the same format: 70 x 105 cm with the same
type of frame for all of them. A photograph has been claimed by the
sponsor for € 2000. The print batch has been done in 5+2 pieces. 5
pieces plus 2 drafts.
T.G.: Do you do the treatment of the files for
printing yourself?
Edoardo Miola: Yes, yes I do it myself. In the
last book I made about Mustangs that came out 20 days ago, I even
treated half of the photos myself while I was travelling using
exactly the power generation equipment that I explained earlier.
Every evening as soon as darkness fell, during the journey I busied
myself with post production with an old laptop, while usually, at
home I use a Mac. When I got back from Nepal, around the 7th or 8th
of November I didn’t have to prepare too much and on the 26th of
the same month, I already had an exhibition open in Turin: all
because I had already selected, chosen and post-produced everything I
needed. In Turin I simply did the printing and the arrangement at the
exhibition, because I like it. When I find myself in the place,
understanding how the final photos will be, and also because if I
realise something is missing, I can do it right then, or I can make
modifications to the way I have of taking photos.
T.G.: Do you
consider this project finished?
Edoardo Miola: (Laughs) The projects:
as soon as they are finished, I want to change them. No, it’s not
finished, in the sense that I’ll definitely work on it some more, I
might add something to it, I might change it. It’s not that I am
never content with a project, but the project is a moment that
catalyses all that went into it. I always say: life is a moment. A
moment later is another life and then the projects are not the same.
T.G.: Do you see yourself going back to Namibia?
Edoardo Miola: If
possible I leave on the 19th , or the 20th of this month, to go down
to sort out the vehicles. I also wanted to take some photos in a
little city in South Africa.
T.G.: Do you have your own equipped
vehicle that you keep in Namibia?
Edoardo Miola: Yes, you can’t do
this type of journey renting the vehicles because I have a vehicle
with a 350-litre petrol fuel which means I neither have to worry nor
have flying jerry cans on the roof. If you want to rent something for
this type of trip, you need to have a lot of cash at your disposal,
renting lots of vehicles and travelling with everything you need that
are really the type of transportation to do with a logistics company
because each vehicle must be equipped with everything. You can find
someone who will rent you his equipped vehicle, but you know he is
very possessive of this vehicle, therefore either it is a company and
they have six vehicles and a truck with spare parts or these journeys
can only be done with a custom designed vehicle and not on a large
scale. When you need to transport a lot of people you have to do it
in convoy.
T.G.: How do you feel about being an “up and coming
photographer” at your age?
Edoardo Miola: I don’t feel like an up
and coming photographer by any means. I’m probably too old, in the
sense that I am over 60 though I bring the enthusiasm of a child to
this job because I would have like to do it when I was 18. In 1974 I
was in Afghanistan and I would have liked to continue going around
places like that, but instead I started doing other stuff. I have
studied and I have travelled but always while doing something else.
The thing that I derive pleasure from is not being “up and coming”
but the fact that my work is well evaluated and well received. I’m
happy people like it. This is all already satisfying for me.
T.G.:
Anything else you’d like to add?
Edoardo Miola: I hope that I’m
never without the desire and the energy to travel, also because these
places I went through are populated with friends. I could tell 1000
stories about these people that are so nice and generous and of an
infinite simplicity. As always happens, it is easier to have
beautiful and deep relationships outside of the large population
centres, because the large population centres, unfortunately,
catalyse the worst things. As soon as you are out of the urban
circuit, the people will bend over backwards to help; they are
curious, they are helpful, they happily share their bread with you.
While you’re speaking, it is normal to break off a piece of what
you’re eating and offer a piece to whoever is with you and eat it
together. I think this says it all.
Edoardo Miola at the MIA fair in Milan, april 2015
