In conversation with Angelo Cucchetto. His Bio
Call for entries of your International Contest URBAN Photo Awards 2017 has started, what are the numbers of past editions?
URBAN sees every year thousand of participating pictures and hundreds of photographers from all over the world. It is an always growing international contest, one of the very few that goes “over the boundaries” of Internet offering to photographers real visibility through dozens of international photo exhibitions. Only in 2016 URBAN saw more then 3.500 pictures uploaded, by more then 900 participants, focalized mostly in Europe, USA and Eastern Countries (India especially), and realized 32 exhibitions displaying about 700 pictures. The Total price value was more then 5.000 €. Behind it all, there is always the pursue of enhancement of photographic talent and quality.
What is the subject of the Contest this year?
URBAN 2017 is dedicated to Urban Photography. The aim is to explore the contemporary through all forms of photography based in the urban fabric. The star of the show: the City. Daily life in the city and in small villages, artistic views, architectural geometries, the fragments of colour that break the city greyness.
The thematic areas are seven: Street Photography, the many aspects of the urban fabric and the lives that inhabit it; Architecture, buildings, streets, urban geometries; Social City, places, events and gatherings in the City; Urban Art, the relationship between people and art in the City; Transport, different style of mobility in the city; Green Life, green areas, places, projects and sustainable lives and the last one Visions, that is a new area thought as a laboratory of artistic and experimental photos outside previous thematic areas (the main theme is always Urban Life). In this case the post-production is allowed. Moreover there is a section for portfolios and projects, where each participant can submit a series of images oriented to show his or her idea through photographs.
Who can participate and how?
Call for entries of your International Contest URBAN Photo Awards 2017 has started, what are the numbers of past editions? URBAN looks for talent and quality both among professional and amateur photographers, offering them an international stage from which to get noticed.
Are there any fees to pay for participation?
For THEMED PHOTOS the participation costs € 10 as entry fee for the first picture; further photos may be entered at a cost of € 5 per photo.
For STORIES & PORTFOLIOS, the participation costs € 10 as entry fee for portfolio, regardless of the number of photos that make up the portfolio (min 3 photos, no more than 12). Each participant can submit a maximum of 5 portfolios.
How will winners be selected?
The presented works will be selected by dotART and judged in a final manner by a prestigious international Jury.
Finalists will be published on the website in alphabetical order, without ranking at the end of July 2017. The absolute winner of Urban 2017 will be personally chosen by Jury President Maurizio Galimberti and he will be awarded personally by him during the award ceremony during the International Photo Festival Trieste Photo Days at the end of October in Trieste, (IT).
Final ranking will be published on URBAN website and Facebook page.
What are the prizes and what is the total amount?
First prize for the contest winner will be of 1.000 € plus accommodation in Trieste for the winner. The other prizes will be 24 along with 16 Honourable Mentions for a total prize of more then 4.000 €, and the chance to be chosen for Urban 2017 Summer Exhibitions around Europe.
Why to apply? Why to partecipate? What is the visibility of winning photographs?
The highest placing works will be published on the competition’s website and will be displayed in a collective exhibit on October/November 2017 in Trieste during Trieste Photo Days 2017.festival together with publication of the winners on our media partners world wide Magazines. Some of the submitted photos may in addition be selected for exhibits in Italy and abroad.
Among partners, other than Image in Progress, I can see many international names…
Even if it is too soon, how will you manage the Winner’s Exhibition and the Awards Ceremony?
From April we will be working on details about TPD Festival. I can already tell you that we will have a public free call for dummy about a personal photo book, with a winner also selected by Maurizio Galimberti and produced by dotART, a nice price for a nice urban photo project…
How do you live along with in the city of Trieste? What is the cooperation until now by the City Hall?
Hopefully this year we will have a good support from the City Hall and Government Region, with nice and important locations for personal exhibition. It seems that they finally understood the potential of this initiative.
Italy has an important historical tradition about photography, what is happening now?
A lot of local initiatives, done with a lot of passion, low budgets, often missing a central coordination; as usual in Italy, government policies are not oriented to professionals but to friends and political issues.
About the Italian photography history that has to be written, what URBAN Photo Awards represents?
A very good chance for Photography, as it is Trieste Photo Days: an international contest and a festival focused on Urban Photography. Today, most of the people in the world live in a urbanized area and there billions of pictures are shot every year.
Among your many initiatives, I have become curious about “Foodgraphy”. Considering the international success of TV program MasterChef and the Italian undeniably popolar cuisin, you chose a perfect country and a perfect timing for promoting this kind of photography, both traditional and experimental… what exactly is Foodgraphy?
Foodgraphia is an Exhibion of Food Art & Photography. It comes from my last project www.shootfood.it, launched in September 2016, an authorial project about food photography. I started it because food in Italy is very important. In the last years we saw the explosion of cooking, food blogging, food story telling, etc. but the quality of the visuals often is not at the level of the food and it misses artistic values, so I thought it was about time for an authorial food photography project.
Are you expecting to organize again another edition next year?
Foodgraphia Exibithion went really well, we had a good public success, a lot of visitors, a good press diffusion. A very nice book produced, also published in digital version at https://issuu.com/shootfood/docs/foodgraphia. I understood Foodgraphia answers to a demand, and we see will go for a second edition in 2018.
By the way, in May 2017 there will be Milano Food Week, an important festival about food and Ho.Re.Ca. world, sponsored this year by the City Hall, the Regional Government and other Government Institutions. As Shootfood we are organizing with them two dedicated projects about Food Photography. But this is a gossip J !
What is happening to still life photography right now?
Professionally not a great period, but I see a good potential in B2C cultural activities.
How can our readers be updated about your next projects?
On our websites: Urban Photo Awards 2017 (www.urbanphotoawards.com), Shootfood (www.shootfood.it), on my historical web portal Photographers.it (www.photographers.it) and, of course, Facebook!
