WINDOW VIEWS

VALENTINA PIACENZA

// Valentina is a photographer based in Milano, Italy. She discovered her creative vein when she began strolling around with her camera. Photography, to her, is a way to show others – without words – how she sees the world. Some of her views are astoundingly beautiful, so we have prepared a collection of window views for you.

For Valentina what started out with just taking pictures on her mobile phone eventually turned into a passion when she received her first camera. She is a technical translator (German—Italian and vice versa), translating patent descriptions. “It’s easy to understand that I can’t put any creativity into this kind of work, as I have to conform to something already framed and set. I discovered my “creative vein” when I began strolling around with my camera,” she says.

Photography is a fresh passion for her, well accompanied by a passion for reading. She enjoys urban photography, loves capturing people´s features during their ordinary days and activities – while working, while waiting for the train, while visiting a museum, while eating, chatting, thinking. She also love architecture, especially architecture details, and her home base Milano offers a lot of this. Throughout the year she spends much time in the Ligurian Riviera, which gives her the chance to come in contact with smaller communities, experiencing the life in old and small villages, enjoying the seaside atmosphere and seaside environment.

“I don’t like speaking about myself. That’s why I love photography. It’s a way to show others – without words – how I see the world, what I like, what my eyes follow. Photography is a way to fix what is lost in translation, what is lost in the passage from eyes to words. ,” she says.

“Life is much more successfully looked at from a single window.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald

What draws you to the arts?

“I am interested in the subjective and personal creative expression of the human being. I envision expressing oneself through arts as going beyond ordinary life.”

What do you like best about your window photography?

“Looking through the window, my achieved solitude of the spirit might connect to other people’s solitude.”

Valentina´s eye is always captured by colours and forms and shapes and geometry, and she tries to see things from different points of view. “I love details. Not every day is good for taking photos. Sometimes I walk for a long time without taking any shot and sometimes it seems to me that everything is worth being photographed,” she adds.

Windows form a natural frame for the little slice of perceived reality that Valentina wants to represent in her photos. They are like a lens through which she sees the world, they can symbolise how the self sees the other; the comfort of being home, yet feeling connected to the outside. “If I’m in, I am able to see outside; vice versa if I’m out looking at windows I can imagine what and who is inside. The windows are openings to outer or inner places. When I see closed curtains, I cannot avoid to move them apart in order to let some light, or even the dark of the night, in”.

We think that Valentina´s window views hold great charm, sometimes mystery, and sometimes simply beauty.

Click on the photos to see a larger image. Some images may be cropped for layout.