Interview with:
Alessandro Mogno

Where are you born and when?

I was born in Montebelluna in the province of Treviso on 30 July 1977

Where do you live?

I live in Resana, a town in the province of Treviso. I don’t recognize myself in this place, I eat, sleep and go to work. My heart is in Treville, my home town.

When and how do you start your path in photography?

I approached photography with my smartphone, always trying to take photos that could convey my emotions and concepts, but it was in 2016 that I took a compact Samsung camera, starting to give a little more voice to my photos.
Then I took a course, or rather two (the second because in the first I had not paid attention to anything since it was in the evening).

I have always been attracted to art and photography, even if I admit my ignorance given by laziness in never having studied anything about it.

Who were the three photographers that inspired you at the beginning and who are the three ones that inspire you now?
Please add links to the pages where the images are shown.

At first I was not inspired by anyone. I photographed landscapes, which I still do because they are a mental relaxation for me, following what was once my teacher and who today has become my friend.

Then one day this friend of mine having to work on an urbex project, asked me if I would go out with him to take some shots of abandoned places. From there I started to insert myself as a figure in contexts, thus arriving at the self-portrait and my photographic style of today.

Who inspires me today? First of all, I am inspired by myself and what I feel I need to express. Artistically and photographically I don’t have any icons that I follow, but there are photographic artists that I find very interesting such as Antoine D’Agata, Frank Machalowski, Peter Zelei, Roger Ballen...

Did you go to a school or are you a self-taught?

I am self-taught even if I would like to go to school sooner or later to enrich my knowledge. I am forged by experiences and attempts to bring out what I have in mind in the frame, always trying to improve myself.

Do you make photography as a living?

Not at the moment. I think that to make a living from photography today either you are a famous photographer or you have to do commercial photography, purely to sell or do services, things that do not belong to me.

What do you like in photography, what is your motivation?

I like the intimacy that I create with myself, the fact that I can also pass it on to people by being on the other side of the lens.

Photography calls me and helps me to externalise what I have inside. It is my soul that becomes a photo.

I really feel the need to continue to express myself, to get rid of what is weighing on me and to conceptualise what I have in my head.

I am motivated by the love and hate I feel towards myself, I call it that, “the restlessness of the soul”.

What do you want to express or arouse in those who watch your images?

My photography is an inner journey, introspective within myself.

There are strong emotions that are exalted, the acceptance of one’s body, the movement of space and time over long periods and dialogues with myself in multiple exposures.

It is a continuous chat with myself and with those who look at me beyond the lens. There are also photos that have messages of rebirth, which one can come to accept after having undergone serious life changes.

What are your preferred moment(s) in the creation process?

I have no particular moments, it is a necessity, a need, both for the self-portrait, for the continuous search for expression of myself, and for the landscape, even if I rarely publish landscape photos because for me it is a mental relaxation to join my mind to nature.

What are your three most representative images, and why?
Please add links to the pages where the images are shown.

Surely they are:

"Black Out: Trauma Trauma"
https://www.instagram.com/p/BQBft0XlY-C/

"Eclipse"
https://www.instagram.com/p/B4sP7DvICDR/

"Triumph of an inverted perspective"
https://www.instagram.com/p/CFPyeYeHLeH/

They are three self-portraits that I started tattooing on my body and that represent my last 30 years of life.

What equipment and/or techniques do you use?

It is not a matter of brands/lenses, it is mostly about analog/digital, preferred light (natural/flash), how much post-production, etc.

My photographic style is mainly based on black and white, long shutter speeds and multi exposures, taking advantage of natural light.

I like strong contrasts, I think they very much reflect my status and who I am inside.

I am someone who often and willingly unhinges photographic techniques. I use Lightroom as post production, I don’t do a lot of it and sometimes some plug-ins like Silver Efex Pro 2.

How and why your work as changed since you started?

It changed when I realised that photography could help me, given my strong sensitivity, in expressing what I have inside, in the continuous inner and introspective research.

At the beginning in my portraits I always tried to hide my physical problem, being a monocle I never liked to see myself still in an image, if not made by myself.

The important turning point was when I started working on a project and I realised that photography could free me from a light weight, that of telling my life path from the post accident to today.

And so CATARSI was born, a photographic story of 30 years of life in 22 shots.
It was there that I realised that Alessandro, the artist, photographer someone was already beginning to know for his photographic style of him, had to be seen for what he was, without being afraid to hide. Alessandro is this, Ceo Ale Photography is this, Ale Ceo Mogno is this: a monocle photographer artist who has a lot of things to tell.

What do you think about the fact that nowadays photography is mostly enjoyed on the Internet?

Having done an exhibition, seeing your photos printed with people who stop and look at them and feel emotions, who manage to get your message, I think it has no comparison with the Internet which has its pros and cons.

Pro because it is still an effective way to get to know other photographers.

Against because sometimes there is too much superficiality and a self-portrait that for you can have an inner value, for someone it is a simple like to give, thus transforming it into the banality of those who look and cannot look beyond.

Then now we live off internet censorship and it has become unbearable.

Why did you decide to join the nudeartzine project?

I think it is an important and very serious project, created to raise awareness of talents and their freedom of expression, without worrying about censorship.

Would you have an insight or advice to give to whomever is watching your work and wants to learn photography?

As an amateur photographer I can only recommend photography as a means of expression and as a therapy for oneself.
Having freedom of expression in a frame is a lot of stuff for me.

What are your plans in the future?

Photographing people who have physical problems and who want to talk to the world. Also convey their emotions.
I know it is an ambitious and very difficult project. People are afraid to question themselves and to be seen.
I’m working on it.

On what page our readers can find more of your work?

On Instagram @ceo_ale_photography, on Facebook Ale Ceo Mogno.
Coming soon on https://www.ceoalephotography.com

Would you like to add something else?

I only want to thank you for giving me this opportunity to make myself known. Photography is life!

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