Trafika Europe 11 - Swiss Delights

Matteo Terzaghi

A PHOTOGRAPHER’S ADVENTURE

Italo Calvino’s “The Adventure of a Photographer” tells the story of a bachelor who finally gives in to photography and love after having staunchly opposed both. Intellectuals often have their own way of rationalizing certain changes of heart, and Antonino Paraggi was, given “his mental approach to life, a philosopher.” Once Paraggi convinces himself that “his antiphotographic battle could only be waged from within the black box, the camera itself,” he is suddenly ready and willing to sprint through the entire history of photography for himself, from rigidly posed portraits to rushed snapshots torn from the ebb and flow of everyday life—not to mention wedding photography, in the form of his marriage to the woman who offers to pose for him. But the most interesting part of this photographic- sentimental journey is where it ends up. The conclusion reads, “Having exhausted all other possibilities, just as he was about to come full circle, Antonino realized that photographing photographs was the only option left— indeed, the only option he’d unwittingly been searching for the entire time.” Is this Paraggi’s ultimate riposte to everyone else’s

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