Massimo Magistrini: IN - Collana CAPSULE PHOTO di Gente di Fotografia

Grammar. It is around grammar that Massimo Magistrini's work revolves, like the needle of a compass.
The very title of the book is entrusted to a preposition, In, which later becomes a prefix to introduce the internal sections. With a daring move, a simple particle takes on the task of deciphering a complex work, articulated in several series that, when considered as a whole, provide a precise vision of photography and the natural world.
Behind the camera, the author adopts the attentive gaze of the hiker who moves through minimal environments but knows how to imagine boundless realities, scrutinizing and consulting woods, herbs, wildflowers, moss, and ancient nautical maps. Micro and macrocosms are rewritten using conventions and technical solutions specific to the expressive medium.
In-canto (TN: en-chantment) is the chapter that opens the book and transports us into the woodland dimension, into an archetypal place where exuberance and mystery dwell. It is the double exposure in-camera - not in post-production - that gathers them both, giving life to a process of sedimentation and transformation that alludes to the physiological and symbolic implications of forest regeneration.
In-colto (TN: un-tended), which follows, instead interprets the idea of a garden, a well-protected hortus conclusus, well guarded by the edges of the image and populated by common yet extraordinary specimens. Here, in addition to the double exposure that emphasizes various combinations of elementary botanical forms, it is the black and white that synthesizes the entire sequence, converting it into a gallery of sophisticated tapestries.
In-esplorato (TN: un-explored), lastly, contains two fantastic maps created with images of mosses and conifer leaves, to which a third map is added, built with details extrapolated from an ancient portolan chart. Abandoning the double exposure, it is now the negative-positive inversion and the photographic cropping that lead us toward an elsewhere. The invitation is to set sail toward an unknown destination, following fragmentary signs, risking both arrival and shipwreck.
In-canto, In-colto, and In-esplorato are truly the cardinal points that allow readers to orient themselves through the pages of a book-object, to be leafed through like a calendar, to traverse time and space - other concepts inherent to photography with which Massimo Magistrini loves to engage.
Finally, it is not only the precise technical choices that make In a small compendium of applied photographic grammar for observing nature. It is also the echo of the knowledge of authors who have either originated or left a trace in the history of photography that enriches the publication. In the deep sense of this research, whether visually or conceptually, we encounter William Henry Fox Talbot, who began his experiments with botanical elements; Eliot Porter, who linked his studies on the colors of forests to Thoreau’s writings; Robert Adams, who redefined the meaning of photographic beauty, connecting it to the contemplation and listening of the landscape.
After all, it is the essential terms of such a widespread language that indicate the path and translate the wonder of territories that, although well-trodden, still ask to be questioned and rediscovered.
(Laura Manione)