This should be nice!

Welcome to this online space, dedicated to my photos and artworks! In parallel with my graphic design, professional activity, I have continually cultivated my passion for art. So, after years of artistic work done in different ways and styles, I decided to make an available selection of the most representative ones. They are classified into different categories, which include drawing, photography, painting and a digital approach that mixes these two techniques.

Research "Shots like paintings": not only digital art

My research "Shots like paintings" start from an award I obtained with a shot at the contest "Photographing the Adda river" in 2009. I won the first prize with an unusual image in that context of naturalistic photos. I was surprised, I didn’t expect it. So, wanting to improve that result, I resumed photographing the Adda but it was inevitable that the photograph was too close to me.

Then one day came the shot "Square Movement", it felt like a painting. His reflexes made me realize that a photograph could look like a painting.
It was a revelation, the reflections expressed themselves as the brush of a painter! It was not easy to confirm this with other convincing photos though. But it was the founder who opened the way to numerous attempts, almost all wrong! Now the road was marked, it was enough to collect the few best fruits and proceed further.

All the series are born from a behavior implemented since the shooting of the photos, that is to interpret the photos as if they were artistic works, indeed pictorial if possible.

In the first series, "Riflessi dell'Adda" I limited myself to taking images that emanated a strong expressive component, without adding filters or manipulations, but only optimizing brightness, contrast and saturation.
These is the link to see the images of the first serie :
https://www.tonitraglia.com/miart/OF/RiflessiAdda_GB/

In the second series "Shots as paintings", I tried to act with the same approach but based on more common shots, giving up the strong expressive vein of reflections, which often seem brushstrokes. I must say that in fact the artistic interpretation of the second series was more difficult, not being able to count on the natural expressive ability present in the reflections. I tried to make this second series more pictorial by acting on color management, trying to make the images more artistic than photographic.
These is the link to see the images of the second serie :
https://www.tonitraglia.com/miart/OF/scattiDipinti_GB/

In both series I did not want to maintain a uniform and unitary appearance, I did not care to represent the works with a single style. Consistency is found in the behavior that allowed each shot to be interpreted as an artistic work. Each image was taken thinking of its pictorial potential, that is, its ability to be a painter rather than a photographer. I didn’t care what style of painting he was able to reproduce, all I needed was for him to be able to paint or to express himself as a famous painter.
For this reason, images coexist seemingly without visual references in common. Some works suggest impressionism, others look like watercolors, other Flemish paintings. And as if I had given my camera the order to express itself in so many ways, but he had to choose a painter or a painting behind each shot. The end result is the coherence present in the artistic behavior of each image: from the photographic shooting to its chromatic interpretation.

In the third series, however, I continue the search with a more linear behavior "Sunsets as paintings" that wants instead to stand out for a strong homogeneity in the visual aspect. All images are based on shots taken in similar environmental circumstances: they are all based on sunsets along watercourses. This behavior differs from the approach of the first two series that are based on shots taken in different environmental contexts.
The serie is inspired by the work "Winter Sunset" that plays a twilight between Canonica and Vaprio; two villages along the river Adda. The technical characteristics of the master allowed a production process that I could control and then repeat, allowing to interpret the image of this selection in a way consistent with the parent. Their contours of trees, mountains and urban settlements, mirrored in the water, reveal artistic symmetries.
Also in this series I have limited myself to optimize the colors with Photoshop in order to obtain the pictorial interpretations of the works; no use of effects, filters or overlaps.
This is the link of the online series:
https://www.tonitraglia.com/miart/OF/tramontiDipinti_GB/

The fourth series "Horizontal snow" aspires to a more abstract result using horizontal compositions in which bands of color and matter are interrupted by the insertion of a white strip of snow. With this experiment I tried to interpret artistically stone barriers and snowy walls; the images were taken along the canal between Vaprio and Concesa. I was interested to see if starting from abstract shots I could get some paintings. Water is no longer the absolute protagonist while the snow white becomes the hallmark of the series. With the extreme forcing of abstract compositions I tried to move the photographic perception towards a typically artistic behavioural impression.
Also in this selection I wanted the photographic matrix of the works to be clearly felt and for this reason the shots were not manipulated or special effects, they were only chromatically optimized with Photoshop. The series appears with a visual appearance with a homogeneous composition; the different starting situations conform to a common compositional structure.
This is the link of the online series:
https://www.tonitraglia.com/miart/OF/Neve_GB/

The last serie was inspired by the strong expressive capacity of the reeds; I tried to interpret the shots pictorially by acting significantly on the colors. My intervention on shades attempted to shift the photographic reality of the shoot towards an artistic impression. My intent was to exploit the expressiveness of the subjects by combining it with a chromatic component in order to alter the photographic representation.
The selection presents a series of images taken at Lake Endine and along the Adda river. A horizontal band at the top characterizes the composition of the works.
Also in this series I wanted the photographic matrix of the works to be clearly felt and for this reason the shots did not undergo manipulations or special effects, they were only chromatically optimized with Photoshop.
This is the link of the last serie:
https://www.tonitraglia.com/miart/OF/Canneti_GB/

The latest works, always with the same approach, are not yet online but are visible on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/tragliatoni/

With this research, I act like a painter who can not start from a blank canvas because each work is interpreted starting from my own photo shoot. So it’s photography that determines the design of the work, and after I go chromatically on its basis. The difficulty lies in identifying shots that contain a pictorial potential; in fact, among the many attempts made, most of the shots become beautiful colored photographs but not paintings. Finally I select works that at least manage to move the perception towards an artistic work rather than a photograph.

In conclusion, I would say that my work has been a constant research to assert human capabilities on digital technology. Like a revenge of the man on the camera, where it is the artistic spirit to dominate the result forcing reality to express an artistic soul that the technique can not generate. Because it’s okay that digital is a new expressive language, but that it is first of all art.

I hope I was clear enough, easier for me to do artworks than describe why!

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