ITALIA, DOLCE VITA ALEX COGHE
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ITALIA, DOLCE VITA
After 3 years in 2013 I managed to return to Italy for a month. During that time I started a photo project, titled ITALIA DOLCE VITA between street photography and documentary and this work has become something more than I could have ever expected. I recently published the first part of this project with the clear intention to complete it when I will have the opportunity to come back in my hometown. In fact I feel the first 100 photographs realized are just the start up of a project documenting Italy from a particular point of view. In the title I mention the golden age (1958-1964) in a style known throughout the world, LA DOLCE VITA, the sweet life of the famous Fellini movie with the unforgettable Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg, where it was evoked remarkably that indulgence typically Italian, that pleasure induced by eating well and dine a good wine, to enjoy staying at the table to talk, to crowd the beaches during the summer, maybe singing the last smash hit.
In this project, aided by the physical distance from my country lasting three years, I want to document a country that basically has not changed too much in his research of being and living well, with food culture and art that permeates every level of Italian society, where even if you do not care much about Art and History you’ll anyway influenced because it is everywhere and permeates the lives of everyone who lives in the Old Boot.The Italians know how to enjoy life despite the economic crisis, despite the political situation. So you can see them still there, at the bar in the morning to drink their coffee, maybe eating a croissant. You can see them come together in the streets, well-dressed with fine linen shirts and sunglasses, with a newspaper under their arm. A lifestyle that ends up to involve the many foreigners who flock to the peninsula, even just as tourists. I wish that those who observe this project consisting, at the moment, of 100 photographs, focus on the clothes and colors, on the details of each photograph because it is with this approach that I decided to photograph and present this project. Through the many color images I tried to tell my country, now that I see it inevitably with different eyes, although I am still absolutely and proudly Italian. Now even more than before.
Alex Coghe is an Italian established editor and photographer currently based in Mexico City whose professional activity ranges from photojournalism to fashion photography. Internationally recognized for his street photography he worked on assignment for Leica Camera AG in 2013 for “People of Chapultepec� a photo story published on the Leica X catalog distributed worldwide. Currently he is documenting "life in the barrio", showing the daily life in popular neighborhoods of Mexico City, and his most recent work published has been ITALIA, DOLCE VITA: 100 photographs between Rome, Florence and Turin dedicated to his documentation of Italians and their lifestyle, always filtered by his vision as a street photographer. He already has many books published along with prestigious collaborations and important exhibitions in the Los Angeles and Miami (US), Roma, La Spezia, Viterbo (Italy), Hamburg (Germany) and Barcelona (Spain). As a publisher and editor he started this year The Street Photographer Notebook, a monthly edition pdf ebook magazine. He is also a photo trainer giving workshops in three different languages on his own but also for institutes and at the University of Communication in Mexico City.