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Massimo Vitali has always made his books as large as possible, to create ample space for the sweeping views of his photography-images which grow as editioned prints to sizes up to 4 meters wide. Yet even at such generous proportions, there are limits to the details we can see in the pages of his books. Much remains impossible to decipher: the figures in the background, the specificity of a gesture or gaze. Distant Close-Ups remedies this predicament, providing both new sight and insight into Vitali's work. Following Entering a New World. Photographs 2009-2018 (Steidl, 2019), the book comprises classic Vitali images made in 2019-23 of waterside recreation, alongside series of people before Florence's Duomo and swarms of concertgoers. The photographs are shown as full-page spreads, and after the main sequence again in close-ups from these images-unveiling as yet unseen details of the hundreds, sometimes thousands of figures Vitali captures in a single frame. And now the revelation: the precise moment a diver's hand breaks the water's surface; the unconscious movements of dancers; the ambiguous, self-absorbed expression of a swimmer, floating at dusk, her eyes skyward-unaware that Vitali, and now we, can see.
About the author
Born in Como in 1944, Massimo Vitali studied photography at the London College of Printing. Beginning in the sixties Vitali worked as a photojournalist, collaborating with magazines and agencies throughout Europe, before turning to cinematography for television and cinema in the early eighties. He eventually returned to still photography as an artist, taking up large-format photography in 1993 and beginning his famous "Beach Series" in 1994. Steidl has published Vitali's Landscape with Figures / Natural Habitats, 1994-2009 (2011), Entering a New World. Photographs 2009-2018 (2019) and Short Stories (2019).
Summary
Massimo Vitali has always made his books as large as possible, to create ample space for the sweeping views of his photography—images which grow as editioned prints to sizes up to 4 meters wide. Yet even at such generous proportions, there are limits to the details we can see in the pages of his books. Much remains impossible to decipher: the figures in the background, the specificity of a gesture or gaze. Distant Close-Ups remedies this predicament, providing both new sight and insight into Vitali’s work. Following Entering a New World. Photographs 2009–2018 (Steidl, 2019), the book comprises classic Vitali images made in 2019–23 of waterside recreation, alongside series of people before Florence’s Duomo and swarms of concertgoers. The photographs are shown as full-page spreads, and after the main sequence again in close-ups from these images—unveiling as yet unseen details of the hundreds, sometimes thousands of figures Vitali captures in a single frame. And now the revelation: the precise moment a diver’s hand breaks the water’s surface; the unconscious movements of dancers; the ambiguous, self-absorbed expression of a swimmer, floating at dusk, her eyes skyward—unaware that Vitali, and now we, can see.
