UNIT 7 (LO1) - Understand contextual perspectives and approaches to photography. AC 1.1 Identity and critically compare contextual perspectives and approaches to photography. My Research on the street photographer : Donato DiCampo and his approach to his genre of photography.

From the series Body Beach Bingo.

Donato Di Camillo

Donato is a new york based photographer who was born in Brooklyn of Italian parentage. As a child he suffered behavoural problems. He was soon expelled from school at the age of 16 for violence, then found himself in and out of behavoural institutions and jails.

It was while he was serving out a prison sentence under house arrest that Donato became more interested in photography. At first he made pictures of bugs, plants and ants and subjects within 120ft of the home he was restricted to in Brooklyn. Upon his release he turned his attention to people. This interest kept him out of trouble and prison and turned his life around. He mentioned that a lady in his block of would bundle up old copies of National Geographic and the Smithsonian magazines and put them out in the trash. Donato explains that his dad would buy them and that's how the Photography seed was planted.

He was a tough street operator who put the long hours of house arrest good use by devouring photography magazines and online articles. He'd always been interested in art,along with the exploration of wild life.

The type of photography Donato eventually turned to was street photography, etc. He likes to focus on stories most photographers won't. Those of people on the fringes of society, those that often remain unseen, even worse, deliberately ignored. Which is not surprising given his background. Donato said he was accustomed to dealing with those kind of people and has empathy for them and their struggle to live. He said we all have that connection to each other. People either don't want to see it or they can't.

The first photograph that got noticed was made when he saw a woman arguing with officials on a food line as she wanted an extra baloney sandwich for her kids. We got chatting as she was also Italian, and she invited me up to see where she was living. It was kind of tragic, but I entered the image in National Geographic, your shot contest and it got published. Even better a photographer called Maggie Steber wrote a really nice critique of the image and that lit the spark. It encountered him to keep shooting and improving. For Donato the biggest challenge was learning how to deal with people as a street Photographer. That said, some of  the "skill" had acquired during his shady life came in useful.

In his photo's he he likes to get close just a couple of feets away, so to quote him these "street smarts" came in useful. This approach could also based on the fact that he originally made pictures of bugs, plants and ants, etc within 120ft of the house h was restrained to under house arrest.

Donato's sharp and colourful images linger on every detail "the littlest detail, maybe in the eyes or the way someone walks can be the difference of making a photograph", translating the beauty of being a human being into intoxicating images that, like a shot of hard booze, will burn in a good way. 

His work has been favourably compared to that of his influences including, Bruce Golden, Robert Frank, Dianne Arbus and Richard Avedon, etc.

While now Donato's recognised as a talented street Photographer.Donato had no idea that such a genre existed. He thought of photographers as photographers and still do.