About

Luciano Del Bufalo is a photographer based in New York City. He documents and captures everyday life and social interactions in his city and around the world. His subjects are unobserved people and their objects or environment - an environment that is decidedly human.  He tries to frame and time  with the aim of creating images at a poignant moment  and seeking at the same time  more a depiction of a scene to remember as a form of social documentary. Luciano Del Bufalo pursues his fine art photography at the International Center for Photography in New York and workshops in Peru and New York City. In 2016 Del Bufalo was a nominee for the Fine Art Photographer of the Year in street photography and received an honorary mention at the International Photographer of the Year for photojournalism. Del Bufalo’s photographs have been published in Black & White Magazine.

A Commentary

Photography: an exchange of glances. The photograph does not exist without the other looking on. One is moved when the photographer sees moments that would be lost if not recorded in his lens. In his eyes and travels Luciano Del Bufalo has been collecting moments that are documents, vignettes retrieved for the enjoyment and enrichment of contemplation. Every image hints at a particular story. Will we be able to interpret it? The important thing is that we ask ourselves, “What is the meaning of this image?”

Learning to look at the photos of Luciano Del Bufalo requires putting aside our daily routines and finding what we don’t normally notice. It demands the observer to regard people as they really are – sometimes solitary, sometimes solicitous, sometimes confused – by noting gestures and actions which cannot be hidden. Even in the megatropolis solitude walks raucously while it fences us in.  People in the apparent company of others may resemble sleepwalkers indifferent to the world around them. But there are times when they break free, engage others or look as if they hope to do so.  Del Bufalo’s photography is always looking for hope.

There are many ways of viewing the world – as a pragmatist, a realist, a romantic, a cynic – but to stop for the unrepeatable, to wait and step out of our perceptional defaults opens us to the possibility of discovery.  And discovery is an act of creation for both the viewer and the artist who looks through a lens.

Commentary by Jose Antonio Yepes Azparren