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English
"Photo book 'Rough Ride Down South’ is Paolo ZERBINI’s first photo-book.
Shot in the deep south of Louisiana, USA, the photo-book presents an introspection of Paolo’s unrest as an adolescent by capturing those emotions in another location, on different faces.
ZERBINI's photographs focus on the fact that all human beings, wherever they may be, are brought together by the communality of feelings they perceive in the perks of everyday life. Angst, melancholy, recklessness, solitude, excitement: these are the key-words of Paolo’s delicate yet bold work.
After years spent distancing himself from those situations, he throws his soul back in that very same game. He observes his surroundings quietly and deeply, portrays them in their raw essence and leaves us – his spectators – enough room to interpret his pictures just as we feel them. Under the sticky heath of Louisiana suburbs and bayous, schoolboys and schoolgirls of any social background reveal their punk attitude towards life. The smokey street-life of afternoons spent chatting away while listening to hip-hop music, drinking Coke and skate-boarding catches the juice of existence at its best – a sequence of reflections through the bright and dark side of normality." (© Marcelo Burlon, source: http://marceloburlon.eu/rough-ride-down-south-paolo-zerbinis-first-photo-book/)
"This book, 'Rough Ride Down South', is entirely shot in the most southern part of the State of Louisiana USA and completely shot on 35 mm film.
Thru 'Rough Ride Down South' I intended to search for the same characters, people, moods, emotions, moments and feelings that have characterised my youth in the flat lands of northern Italy. I grew up in a very small provincial town in north of Italy, very flat and vast characterised by a very small town mentality. This mentality and the people of the town played a very strong role in keeping my confidence down, and oppressing me during my early teen year. I finally left when I was 17 to go to the USA for one year. I didn't go to Louisiana but going to the States opened up my mind and from then on I never stopped travelling, and since then found my independence from the town and its inhabitants.
During recent years I have made peace with the place I grew up in and I have started looking at it in a different way. So, I decided to portray that feeling that characterised my youth in a photo project but shot somewhere else. Louisiana, the south of it, has a lot in common with the place where I grew up. Both by a big river, both hot and flat lands and more then anything else they are both very small town, provincial mentalities. Both characterised by big sky and beautiful landscapes, as much as small minded people with inquisitive attitudes.
So the book is full of symbols and semantic traces that are not obvious to the first look. but hopefully it will grow on people with time." (© Paolo ZERBINI)
Book review:
"Paolo ZERBINI is an observer. A quiet observer with an ability to take a step back in order to see these moments in their fullness. Growing up in a small community in Northern Italy, Paolo felt himself distant, removed, somehow ostracized. The photographic essay that came from his long stay in Louisiana is an introspective one. Paolo manages to look closely without intruding on the intimate situations he captures.
As the writing on a truck in one of ZERBINI's photographs suggests: to live, laugh, love and leave."
Shot in the deep south of Louisiana, USA, the photo-book presents an introspection of Paolo’s unrest as an adolescent by capturing those emotions in another location, on different faces.
ZERBINI's photographs focus on the fact that all human beings, wherever they may be, are brought together by the communality of feelings they perceive in the perks of everyday life. Angst, melancholy, recklessness, solitude, excitement: these are the key-words of Paolo’s delicate yet bold work.
After years spent distancing himself from those situations, he throws his soul back in that very same game. He observes his surroundings quietly and deeply, portrays them in their raw essence and leaves us – his spectators – enough room to interpret his pictures just as we feel them. Under the sticky heath of Louisiana suburbs and bayous, schoolboys and schoolgirls of any social background reveal their punk attitude towards life. The smokey street-life of afternoons spent chatting away while listening to hip-hop music, drinking Coke and skate-boarding catches the juice of existence at its best – a sequence of reflections through the bright and dark side of normality." (© Marcelo Burlon, source: http://marceloburlon.eu/rough-ride-down-south-paolo-zerbinis-first-photo-book/)
"This book, 'Rough Ride Down South', is entirely shot in the most southern part of the State of Louisiana USA and completely shot on 35 mm film.
Thru 'Rough Ride Down South' I intended to search for the same characters, people, moods, emotions, moments and feelings that have characterised my youth in the flat lands of northern Italy. I grew up in a very small provincial town in north of Italy, very flat and vast characterised by a very small town mentality. This mentality and the people of the town played a very strong role in keeping my confidence down, and oppressing me during my early teen year. I finally left when I was 17 to go to the USA for one year. I didn't go to Louisiana but going to the States opened up my mind and from then on I never stopped travelling, and since then found my independence from the town and its inhabitants.
During recent years I have made peace with the place I grew up in and I have started looking at it in a different way. So, I decided to portray that feeling that characterised my youth in a photo project but shot somewhere else. Louisiana, the south of it, has a lot in common with the place where I grew up. Both by a big river, both hot and flat lands and more then anything else they are both very small town, provincial mentalities. Both characterised by big sky and beautiful landscapes, as much as small minded people with inquisitive attitudes.
So the book is full of symbols and semantic traces that are not obvious to the first look. but hopefully it will grow on people with time." (© Paolo ZERBINI)
Book review:
"Paolo ZERBINI is an observer. A quiet observer with an ability to take a step back in order to see these moments in their fullness. Growing up in a small community in Northern Italy, Paolo felt himself distant, removed, somehow ostracized. The photographic essay that came from his long stay in Louisiana is an introspective one. Paolo manages to look closely without intruding on the intimate situations he captures.
As the writing on a truck in one of ZERBINI's photographs suggests: to live, laugh, love and leave."
- Ed(s)/Author(s)
- Hanna Pütz
- Book design
- Carol MONTPART
- Format
- HC (no dust jacket, as issued), 30 x 34 x 2 cm., 92 pp., color ills., text language: English