# Photography as art/Augusto De Luca/Quotations

Augusto De Luca (born July 1, 1955) is an Italian artist and photographer, who graduated in law and became professional photographer in the mid-1970s. He is working along the boundary line between traditional and experimental photography.

## Quotes

* Light enhances but its shadow deletes, thus giving the picture its depth, its third dimension and its subtractive properties… I believe that commitment and technical skill can be achieved by means of one’s own will and study, while fantasy and passion are more valuable because they are innate and inescapably peculiar assets.
** As quoted in: "Augusto De Luca", text by Giuseppe Alario for Il Fotografo Professionista Kodak N°27 (March 1987), p. 49)
* I was born in Naples but my mother is from Rome, therefore some water from the Tiber river runs for sure in my veins.
** As quoted in: Roma Nostra by Augusto De Luca, (Gangemi Editore, Rome - 1996) ISBN 978-88-7448-705-9
* All my photographs seep through EMOTION, through the relationship I establish with the place I am portraying. Whenever I see something that captivates me, I start turning around it to find MY OWN frame. I work on myself and on the city at the same time.
** As quoted in: Milano senza tempo by Augusto De Luca (Gangemi Editore, Rome - 2000) ISBN 978-88-492-0093-5
* Nothing compares to pizza, and you discover and rediscover it when you are much too old, and you have got too much cholesterol and triglycerides…A collector is someone who is ready to devour the work of art that he wants to possess at all costs.
** As quoted in: interview by Dimitri Grassi for Ziguline webzine (12 March 2009)
* I need geometry to set the grammar of the image expressive language. The structural skeleton, the composition and the geometric layout provide a perspective from which one can read the image; otherwise we would do what Dadaists did when they put words in a little bag and then took them out at random in order to compose a poem.
** As quoted in: interview by Flavia Squarcio for L’ItaloEuropeo (4 December 2009)
* An incipient Mother Man has always inhabited my deeper self; creativity has always been my companion ... I have tried to express myself in a very definite style but by means of all kinds of materials and formats. I wish to discover how my own creativity unfolds under different circumstances ... Naples is a dilemma that fatally elicits an oneiric interpretation and I love it and feel grateful because it has nurtured my fantasy.
** As quoted in: interview by Laura Vecchio for Les flaneurs (22 September 2010)
* I feel like a sailor, or better, like an explorer of the immense universe of art. The artist is a discoverer in search of the keys that open the door to emotions and feelings. Art is the place where rationality, fantasy, truth and fiction mix up in a detonating mixture.
** As quoted in: interview by Amedeo Novelli for Witness Journal N° 32 (May 2010)
* Great photography comes about at the right time but it also needs the right cut that enhances that precise moment ... Photography must feed on both contents and form, if it gives up the one for the other it is not going to last.
** As quoted in:interview by Maria Caro for Ziguline webzine (12 April 2010)
* I possess multiple souls, that come out month in month out, year in year out. I am a photographer, a performer, a lawyer, a collector, a musician. I am all that, I do not throw anything away, I just allow my diverse souls to take turns…If you take pictures for the sake of other people, your true essence will never come out, you will end up with doing things others already did, just because you know that people like them .... My photographs convey my ideas, passions, monsters, who I am and what is on my mind.
** As quoted in:interview by Maria Caro for Ziguline webzine (12 April 2010)
* First and foremost I feel I am a child of God.... Today I think that everything matters, but like a nice game of relative importance and value, certainly not absolute like conversion.
** As quoted in: interview by Isabella Barbato for Effe Project (8 July 2011)