Written by Artemide De Blanc
The dark room
The room of the country house in the Agro pontino, linked to his childhood, to the maternal grandmother. Left uninhabited, the theatre of memories and endless visits. A sort of ‘initiation’ that led Paolo del Frate to breathe in the yearning for light that filtered through the window. Thus, that symbolic room became the forge of his images, like material in the hands of a sculptor. The black room, the darkroom the point from which the erotic-oniric skein of this splendid devotee of the female body unravels, moulded by light that is often sparse, sometimes Caravaggio-like. Always nostalgic.
On your site there are three nouns referring to women: respect, adoration, catharsis. Can you explain them to us?
Coming from a family of four older sisters, I have grasped the feminine in every nuance. Women have a different approach to life and the world. Women are necessary entities, to which I link the three words, part of a poem that reflects my experience.
When did you start shooting?
I was 15 years old. I felt the manifest vanity of my companions and when one of them asked to be photographed, I offered. I was using ambient light, I did not have the financial resources to buy important materials. From there I never left photography. And I have always followed a canvas: what the photographer sees, the ‘spectators’ must also see.
A naked body does not hide, it tells the truth. The great deception is to link eroticism to sex.
Photographer Paolo Del Frate | Instagram @paolodelfrateofficial Models: JuiLo - Instagram @juiloquellavera | Ereka Marcellino - Instagram @emarchellie Claudia Lion - Instagram @claurilion
