This article is a second print of Davide Luciano – Potholes by Sara Namias from Zoom Magazine, Winter 2012
Davide Luciano has always had a passion for art.
He attended the Toronto Film School and he grew up studying film, winning numerous awards as best director and with screenings of his works at the Montreal and Toronto film festivals. His passion, creativity and, above all, innate sense of humor, are the characteristics that set his work apart, including in still photography, his second great love.
Davide Luciano, Bus Stop, 2011, photography
Canadian by birth, Davide Luciano works in close collaboration with his wife, Claudia Ficca. “My parents and grandparents immigrated to Canada from Italy in the 1950s and my wife, who is also of Italian descent, is a food photographer so the film about tagliatelle was done with her. We are very close to our families and our Italian roots and we both try to preserve the Italian traditions that were passed on to us, especially the culinary ones. My wife is also my creative partner. We work as a team on each other’s projects. ‘Potholes’ was born after we hit a huge pothole in our area which caused damage to our car, so we decided to channel our frustration into creativity by creating a humorous series.” Each shot is unique. “Once we have a scene in mind, we go on a quest to find the perfect pothole for that particular scene. We ask ourselves questions like: Do we want an industrial look? Once we find our potholes we then get all our models and our props together, and place everything around the pothole and shoot. We shoot without permits and during uninterrupted traffic. We take turns with the camera and looking out for oncoming traffic. The shoot usually takes about 10 minutes from start to finish.”
Davide Luciano, Claudia and Davide, 2012, photography
With little time at their disposal and much concentration, Davide Luciano and Claudia Ficca skillfully create photos that seem taken from a film set and perfectly reproduce a sense of movement thanks to the harmony between the facial expression and action of the subject. Nonetheless, everything is completely absurd. Sort of like what happens in Roger Rabbit and other films where cartoon characters are brought by the director into the real world. Here, Alice in Wonderland chases the White Rabbit into a gaping hole in a city street, the lifeguard from Baywatch saves someone drowning in the middle of the asphalt, and a fisherman pulls and enormous fish out of what seems to be an ice-covered lake. It’s impossible not to smile in the face of these scenes.
Davide Luciano, Simona, 2012, photgraphy
“This project began as a fun way of looking at potholes. We can’t always change things, but we can change the perspective from which we see them. We plan to continue ‘Potholes’ in Europe and we have just finished a new series that will be published soon: a social and humorous work that analyzes how people lose their individuality.”
Davide Luciano – Potholes by Sara Namias for Zoom Magazine, Winter 2012, #105 international ed. – #233 italian ed.
Davide Luciano photography show “Sheep Nations” is on view at Pentimento Fine Art Gallery still June 3, 2012