It can.
It can, like any other activity accompanied by an act of self-reflection.
Psychotherapy has been the most important experience of my life. The existential lesson I have learned from it is: «Always ask yourself “Why?”». In other words: why do I have these thoughts/desires/tastes, why do I perform these actions? Every choice I make, when examined, becomes an opportunity to gain clarity about myself and my deepest motivations. By gaining clarity, I gain awareness. And only with awareness can I change and stop suffering.
I started taking photographs somewhat by chance, many years ago, with an old iPhone, applying Instagram filters. I even got some decent shots, within the limits of the tool and my insignificant skills. Then I stopped: other interests, especially other concerns.
In 2024, I treated myself to an entry-level Canon: the EOS R50. Why? I don’t know. A phase of change in my life: new interests, new goals. I said to myself, «I’ll give it a try».
And I tried.
This time, however, I studied. I studied really well: the tool, the technique, the genres. I studied and I messed up. I messed up a lot. In the midst of all that messing up, I also took some nice photos. Some of them were more than nice. Photos I was very proud of. Today, I look at them and feel embarrassed. Not because of the photos, but because of my pride at the time. Very cringe-worthy, really.
Those photos were missing a lot of things. Above all, they lacked a taste, a project, a genre. I liked many things: street photography, still life, portraits, landscapes, minimalism. Looking for inspiration, I looked at other people’s photos and liked a bit of everything and wanted to imitate a bit of everything, without finding my own way.
I had my first epiphany when I discovered non-realistic photography, even abstract photography. Those were the images that struck me.
Of course, the shot of the Dolomites at golden hour is spectacular, and I would never be able to imitate it. However, having seen one, – please don’t crucify me! – I’ve seen them all. I scrolled through hundreds of wonderful images of fjords and mountains and forests and waterfalls, but also of striking faces on the other side of the world. Wonderful and, above all, technically perfect. I remember four or five at most. The others, I don’t know.
Why? Taste, I would say. Maybe I’m superficial, who knows. But these photos, however excellent, don’t speak to me. They don’t move me. They don’t shake me up.
Then, I discovered non-realistic photography. Images that are deliberately imprecise, imperfect, blurred. Fjords and mountains and forests and waterfalls and striking faces, but deliberately ruined. With exaggerated contrast. With implausible colours. With the wrong focus. And I thought, «Oh, fuck!». Finally, an emotion, a shock. That was what I wanted.
Hence my first psychotherapeutic insight: I don’t like reality as it is.
So I started taking photographs that way: ICM, blurring, strange filters on the lens, overlays. And I liked the results. Damn, I liked them. Finally, I was producing something that gave me satisfaction, that I could show to others without feeling ashamed. In fact, even when faced with criticism, I knew how to respond. Behind every stylistic choice there was a conscious thought.
The second epiphany came when I realised what feature all the photos that moved me, whether mine or others’, had in common: contrast. Both light and colour contrast.
Many of my photos were characterised by intense contrast, which was further enhanced in post-production. Impenetrable blacks and exaggerated highlights. Saturated complementary colours, often very similar in combination: turquoise and cobalt against yellow, orange and red.
Hence the second psychotherapeutic insight: I love extremes. After all, it is consistent with my life. I could only be a communist or a fascist, an atheist or a bigot. (For the record: I am a communist and an atheist, but that is beside the point.)
In doing so, I found my stylistic signature: unreality and contrast. And then?
And then that’s it. What else?
But no. You can’t just take photos of anything and everything. Or rather, you can, but it remains a somewhat pointless activity. It’s fine, but it’s not enough for me. Not anymore.
So, after receiving constructive criticism from people who are more competent and experienced than me, I realised that all my photos were lacking something: consistency. Consistency in both form and subject matter, beyond unreality and contrast. Until then, I had taken many photos – some of them beautiful, some of them very beautiful – but they were a bit random. There was no common thread. There was no plan.
So what?
So I made a project. What does it take?
A lot, it takes a lot, damn it. A lot.
So, in hindsight, I tried to find the project among the photos I had already taken. In short, I said to myself: if I understand how I like to photograph by reconsidering what I have already done, perhaps I can also understand what I like to photograph always by reconsidering what I have already done.
So what do I like?
I looked back at my photos and realised that in many cases – but not all – the theme was the same: silence, destruction, abandonment. Above all, the absence of humans. If humans were present, they were marginal. If humans were present, they were simulacra. And this was true for many nature photos as well as many with artificial subjects: never humans.
My photos without humans conveyed sadness. They evoked a sense of depression.
Why? I don’t know. I don’t feel particularly depressed. Please note: I am not talking about depression in a generic sense, but with full knowledge of the syndrome, because I have been through it and unfortunately I know what it is. But that’s not the case now: I’m fine, I’m calm. Yet I feel attracted, fascinated, excited by those livid, gloomy, violent, sad and, yes, depressing atmospheres. But the reason doesn’t matter: that’s what I like to photograph, that’s what I like to extract from images when I post-process them.
Can you build a photographic project retrospectively?
Yes, you can.
You shouldn’t, but you can. If that project also becomes a tool for better understanding yourself, you can.
Usually, the process is the opposite: you first decide what you want and how you want to photograph it (which subjects, in what form, with what tools) and then you go hunting. Instead, I started with the existing material and defined the project retrospectively.
This is how «Livid Doom» came about: a discovery of an aesthetic, a style and a subject that were already inside me and that only the practice of photography, unbeknownst to me, allowed me to extract. Only when it came out did I recognise the aesthetic, embrace it and understand how to interpret it on a psychological level.
«Livid Doom» came about like this, but it is not yet finished. Now the line is defined, explicit, conscious. Now I can shoot no longer driven only by my unconscious impulses, but searching for the subject, the effect and the style in a conscious, functional way that is consistent with the project. Photography first, and «Livid Doom» in particular, then acted as psychotherapy.
And the rest? It remains and remains. And it is not certain that other projects will not arise.