In Pursuit of Beauty: Form and Flow in the Natural and Man-made Worlds - Friends of Friends / Freunde von Freunden (FvF)

In Pursuit of Beauty: Form and Flow in the Natural and Man-made Worlds

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Muted, pastel and ghostly, Bruno Candiotto’s haunting architectural and landscape photography may at first seem fragile or even bland.

However, linger in the atmosphere of his works and you’ll discover the inviting and informed strength to his work. The São Paulo native is an artist at heart, committed to a singular lifelong mission, regardless of where it might lead him. His playful personality reveals itself in his work, along with his refined aesthetic sense. “I will save the world! It is quite ingenuous but it just is what it is. I want to make people reflect on how beautiful and simple things are.”

When he feels complacent, the photographer sets off for another undefined journey. Each defies his expectations in its own way. “São Paulo is a comfort zone for me, which sometimes makes me feel good and bad at the same time.”  He pushes himself beyond convenient shots—when he climbed the front wall of a dwelling for a series in the remote Chilean village of El Yeco to try and find the ideal angle for an aerial view, the owners invited him inside. With each project, Bruno’s world grows through connecting to his photographic subjects with the help of the locals guiding him to their beloved architectural, cultural and natural landmarks.

“I had an imaginary camera when I was a child. I used to play with it freely, capturing and deleting images instantly from my memory.”

Though his appreciation of the world is ever changing and growing, his connection to the camera is constant, knowing its ins and outs since childhood. “I had an imaginary camera when I was a child. I used to play with it freely, capturing and deleting images instantly from my memory. Amazingly, that’s how it works nowadays. If I do not play, I can not shoot.” It was a while before photography became a natural extension of the artist, as he had to find his own way of controlling its capabilities for him to feel it resonate with his worldview. The photographer cut his teeth in the fashion photography industry before coming to realization that “being true and free is not doing everything you want, but it is doing everything with all your heart.”

One heavy influence in his most recent work came from a brief stint studying architecture. Training his eye on the beauty of man-made creations, his lens always seems to find patterns and order where others would find chaos and atonality. Bruno always seems to be looking for an underlying connecting theory between the way people embrace their lives and experience their surroundings.

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