LEGENDS
VIERI BOTTAZZINI’S FOUNDATION GENESIS COLLECTION
Launched: April 11, 2021
Throughout history, mankind relied on myths and legends to explain the unexplainable and make sense of what couldn’t be made sense of. LEGENDS is a collection of images inspired by myths and legends I discovered – or imagined – during my travels.
All images are single shot, unadulterated, pure UltraDeep black & white photographs. Each image tells its story through the passing of time, expressed visually in the pieces via the use of exposure controlling techniques, all done in-camera and at the time of shooting.
Delving into the history, geology and culture of the places I visit and interpret through my photography is a fundamental part of my travels. Not only I am incurably curious, and I really enjoy discovering the myths and legends of a community, but they really deepen my understanding of the landscapes I photograph. There are two elements of great importance for me in this collection: myths and legends, and the ocean.
Myths and legends add a layer of cultural complexity to the landscape’s beauty I couldn’t work without. So much so that if I don’t find any stories, I make up some of my own.
The second fundamental element of this collection is water, the power of which I always found fascinating and mesmerizing. I grew up on the Mediterranean, and I am familiar with the short waves, small tides and sudden, violent storms of this relatively small body of water. This is perhaps why I find the attraction of the ocean, with its enormous tides and infinitely long waves, irresistible. Rivers, with their ability to carve landscapes with their patient but awesome power, are often less immediately impressive than oceans, but not less fascinating for me.
Water, either the ocean’s or rivers’, is like a living, breathing thing for me, it’s a leading character on the stage of my images, a powerful presence to be constantly reckoned with. It’s a metaphor for life.
This collection tells the legendary stories of mythological creatures such as trolls and sea monsters, living, moving and acting in the sea of life.
LEGENDS
THE PHOENIX’S WINGS
BROKEN PATHS
DISCOVERING NEW WORLDS
JURASSIC THIRST
LEGENDS OF FALLEN HEROES
ARNARDRANGUR
LEGENDS is a series of 1/1 edition NFTs available exclusively on Foundation. Upon request, each piece comes with a signed metal print and a free photographic book. Each sale funds the planting of 500 trees.
BLACK & WHITE | PASSION AT WORK
There’s nothing like black & white photography, for me. It is timeless, powerful and expressive, and I believe it to be the best medium to tell my stories and to reveal the true nature of the planet’s landscapes through my photographic interpretations. Black & white landscape photography is my lifelong passion.
Removing colour from a photograph is an incredibly powerful process in terms of the expressive possibilities it opens, one that requires a completely different approach to seeing the world around us. For me, it takes photography to another level, requiring a craftsmanship in the field, an attention to composition and an ability for abstract seeing, that colour photography doesn’t necessarily need. When I work, my decision is made long before pressing the shutter; if a landscape reveals its monochromatic nature to inspire me, I just can’t help it but let go of the colours.
My UltraDeep B&W are the result of a lifetime dedication to the art of B&W. Starting from the days of film, I explored the tonality and depth of B&W mixing my own, Pyro-based developers for a truly unique range of tones. When I moved to digital, I ported those deep tones to the digital realm via the creation of a personal process – the UltraDeep B&W – resulting in truly unique B&W photographs with a huge tonal range, compared to the flat, high-contrast look you see in most of digital B&W photography today.
LEGENDS | THE COLLECTION
ARNARDRANGUR
“Thousands of years. So far away, yet so close that they can almost touch one other. Looking at each other every day, longing every day for each other’s touch, but never able to get to each other.
They grew up hoping that growing up will bring them closer. Instead, time just brought about their decay. Their bodies, eroded by the elements, got smaller day after day. Yet, a connection was made, as powerful as their longing. A connection built on fleeting grains of sand, but as strong as the rock there are made of.
So far away, yet so close, under the cover of passing time.”
“Arnardrangur – So far away, yet so close” is one among the favourite black & white Fine Art images I have created so far. Anrardrangur means literally “Eagle Rock”, and the stack is certainly as majestic as an eagle.
This story is about impossible connections, about the faraway relationships that could have been but never actually happened, about longing for that which we cannot have.
Read the full “Behind the scene” on my blog: THE STORY BEHIND ARNARDRANGUR.
LEGENDS OF FALLEN HEROES
“Fallen heroes. Petrified trolls, punished for their failure to protect, when nobody knew the sacrifice they really made. Forever condemned to stand guard, forever unable to guard anything anymore.
They set out for their mission, heroes in the making. It takes courage to stand alone, in the middle of the sea, steadfastly waiting for the enemy. Their mission, impossible; their bravery, endless. Nothing prepared them for an eternity locked in a body of stone, but stone they became, nevertheless.
Fallen heroes, forever guarding the beach.”
“Legends of Fallen Heroes” is inspired by the Icelandic myth describing Reynisdrangar sea stacks as trolls turned into stone when they tried to bring a ship to shore.
This story is about paying the ultimate prize for failing to complete one of the missions that life challenges us with, it’s about unselfish sacrifice.
Read the full “Behind the scene” on my blog: THE STORY BEHIND LEGENDS OF FALLEN HEROES
JURASSIC THIRST
“Thirsty. So thirsty. Eternally drinking, hopelessly thirsty. Salt sea water. He knows. The more he drinks, the thirstier he gets. He knows, yet he just can’t stop drinking. Thirsty.
Million years went by. He saw the world around him crumbling apart, but he endured, resisted, stayed. The last of his kind, for hundreds of miles. Memories of the Jurassic slowly fading away in his crumbling mind, he can’t remember neither how he got there nor when, nor why he is still there, drinking.
Thirsty, eternally thirsty. An unquenchable, Jurassic thirst.”
“Jurassic Thirst”, created in one of Dorset’s most iconic locations, holds a special place in my heart. Durdle Door looks like a giant creature, a Jurassic sea monster, drinking water from the ocean.
This story is about hopelessness, is about trying to assuage a need by doing that which makes the need worst instead.
Read the full “Behind the scene” on my blog: THE STORY BEHIND JURASSIC THIRST
If you are interested in collecting this piece, feel free to CONTACT ME for details and to schedule a call.
DISCOVERING NEW WORLDS
“Cracks in layered rocks opening a window to the unknown, paving inner roads to discovering new worlds.”
Horseshoe Bend is one of those iconic location that I always love to photograph and offer new interpretations of.
Exploring the cliff’s edge I found an opening allowing me to create a feeling of discovery, as if the bend would appear suddenly in a crack of the rocks.
BROKEN PATHS
“Seemingly eternal, a legendary road to a legendary island suddenly sank, leaving behind broken paths to a now unreachable, mythological place of the soul.”
The cliffs of Trebarwith Strand are extremely inspiring with any tide and under any weather.
However, they are at their most dramatic in conditions such as these, where the ledge looks like a path leading to the nothingness, never reaching the islet ahead under a stormy, menacing sky.
THE PHOENIX'S WINGS
“ Searching for new life
Rocks reaching for the Phoenix’s wings
Forgot the life they carried inside them.”
This is one of the images carrying most meaning for me. First, it’s a hyper-photographed location, but there aren’t many photos of it looking like this. Second, to create it I had to pre-visualise the clouds movement; envision a break in the clouds letting the light shine on the ridge; prepare myself for 2 minutes and 30 second exposure, which I felt would transform the clouds as I wanted them.
Finally, I waited the right moment when the sun hit the ridge, took a shot knowing that the clouds rapidly moved away, leaving me without a second chance.
Last, it has been shot in Death Valley, which is the place where I decided I wanted to do landscape photography for the rest of my life, leaving my college Professorship to do so.
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