About

Stefano Carotenuto (b. 1984, Naples, Italy). I work as a designer at the National Research Council of Italy and photograph in the street as an amateur. Martin Parr and Steve McCurry have each picked my work in competitions they judged. The full record is further down.

“My approach to fashion jobs is generally fear/faith based, in a way that has never gotten particularly comfortable. I get zero satisfaction from crafting a picture, got zero interest in control or direction.

Sounds a bit flamboyant I know, but in the humblest, most practical, earthbound way, I’m just much more interested in miracles. To catch something that nobody thought of, that happened on its own. So much depends upon torturous shoes. Hard to do much on purpose when your feet hurt.”

Daniel Arnold, Pickpocket, Elara Press, 2021, p. 158

The diary

Everything I think is worth keeping ends up here, in the order it was taken. There are no series and no projects — I’ve never managed to work that way. The pictures have nothing in common except that I was walking when I took them.

Benjamin, in the part of The Arcades Project he set aside for the flâneur:

“An intoxication comes over the man who walks long and aimlessly through the streets. With each step, the walk takes on greater momentum; ever weaker grow the temptations of shops, of bistros, of smiling women, ever more irresistible the magnetism of the next streetcorner, of a distant mass of foliage, of a street name. Then comes hunger. Our man wants nothing to do with the myriad possibilities offered to sate his appetite. Like an ascetic animal, he flits through unknown districts — until, utterly exhausted, he stumbles into his room, which receives him coldly and wears a strange air.”

Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, Harvard University Press, 2002, p. 417

The end of that is the part I recognise. The walking is the easy half and can go on for hours; what’s hard is getting home and looking at what you actually came back with.

None of it is arranged. I can’t ask for a second frame, or move anyone, or wait around for better light — by the time I’ve thought about it the thing has gone. Most afternoons I come back with nothing I can use. Every so often something happens in front of me and I’m quick enough.

The edit

On Instagram and Flickr I post things while I’m still making up my mind about them, and a fair amount of it comes down again later. What’s on this site has been through that and stayed, so it’s the version I’d rather people saw.

The mark

It’s the pedestrian-crossing sign — the triangle with a figure stepping onto a zebra crossing — with two things changed: the figure is in a top hat and tails, and he is holding a camera. A nineteenth-century dandy on a modern crossing.

Photography

Some of the work has travelled. In 2018 Martin Parr picked one of my pictures for a Life Framer open call; in December 2019 a print hung at HistoryMiami Museum during the Art Basel Week; in 2023 I co-authored “10 Street Photography” with photographers whose work I’d been following for years. The rest is in the lists further down.

The one I’d point to first isn’t a prize. In June 2019 Corriere della Sera’s Style Magazine published my story as a “one-handed street photographer”, with a selection of the work — the only piece so far that’s about how the pictures get made rather than what they went on to win.

Get in touch stefanocarotenuto@gmail.com

For prints, commissions, publishing or just to say hello.

Publications, talks & press

2023: Co-author for “10 Street Photography” — Psicografici Editore
2023: Talk “Street Photography e dintorni. La seconda vita delle immagini di strada”
2023: The Bestselected Book Vol. VI (p. 106)
2023: “La mia fotografia di strada” on FIAF.net, by Mario Mencacci
2022: Interview: Best Series Finalist, Exibart Street Contest
2022: Street Fight — Eyeshot Magazine #9 (p. 23)
2022: Best Rising Photographers of April 2022 — all-about-photo.com
2022: All About Photo Magazine #22: STREETS
2021: Your Best Shot 2021 — Portraits, a gallery curated by Flickr
2021: The Independent Photographer, Street Photography Award Editors’ picks
2020: Street Photography Magazine (Issue 100)
2020: Photo live reviewed by Meryl Meisler, Jeff Mermelstein and Eli Reed during MSPF
2020: URBAN unveils the City and its secrets Vol. 06 (p. 289)
2020: “Trofeo Città di Follonica” Catalog (p. 43)
2020: HCSP Flickr Best Entries Of This Season — 121clicks.com
2020: Photographer on Street Photographers Foundation
2020: Photographer on Street Sweeper Magazine
2020: Vomero Magazine, January issue (p. 28)
2019: Miami Street Photography Festival Catalog (p. 41)
2019: Street Photography Magazine (Issue 86)
2019: Vita da salmoni — Il Mattino, December 9 (p. 24)
2019: Style Magazine — Corriere della Sera (pp. 186–191)
2019: Photographer on Eyeshot Magazine
2019: Photographer on Life Framer Collection
2019: Something Beyond our Perception — Life Framer Editors’ Pick

Selected awards

2023: Finalist, Pisa Street Photography International Festival
2023, 2020: Finalist, Urban Photo Awards
2022: Top 10 Series, Exibart Street Contest 2021, judged by Steve McCurry
2020–2022: Finalist, Italian Street Photo Festival
2022: Winner, FIIPA FIOF Italy International Photography Awards (Amateur Cat. People)
2020: Finalist, Street Photo Istanbul
2019–2020: Finalist, Miami Street Photography Festival
2020: Finalist, Fujifilm Moment Street Photo Awards
2020, 2018: Finalist, London Street Photography Festival
2020: 1st place, Street Contest Trofeo Città di Follonica
2020: 1st place, Bangkok Street Photography Festival
2019: Finalist, Street Photography Italy Exhibition Florence
2019: Finalist, Aussie Street Photography Festival
2018: Finalist, Life Framer Open Call, judged by Martin Parr
2018: Finalist, StreetFoto San Francisco

Group exhibitions

2023: Pisa, Centro Espositivo Museale SMS. September 23–24
2022: Iserlohn, Observations 2022 Street Photography Festival. June 24–26
2022: Rome, Officine Fotografiche. April 29–30 and May 1
2021: Częstochowa, Centre of Culture Promotion “Gaude Mater”. February 1–26
2020: Follonica, Pinacoteca Civica. June 20 – August 30
2020: Turin, #artfromthebalcony. March 31
2020: Bangkok, Kathmandu Photo Gallery. February 25–29
2019: Miami, HistoryMiami Museum during the Art Basel Week. December 5–8
2019: Milan, Officine Fotografiche. October 17 – November 15
2019: Florence, ZAP Zona Aromatica Protetta. October 19–20
2019: London, Bermondsey Project Space. September 24–28
2019: Sydney, Comber Street Studios. September 20–22
2019: Naples, Paleontology Museum. May 2 – June 8
2018: London, Stour Space. August 3–5
2018: San Francisco, Harvey Milk Photo Center. June 4–10
2018: Bari, Castello Svevo. May 11–21

Colophon

Small cameras, because I want to keep walking without carrying a bag, and because a big one changes how people behave before you’ve even raised it.

Digital: Ricoh GR II and GR III, Fujifilm X100F and XF10, Olympus TG-6, and whichever iPhone happened to be in my pocket
Film: Olympus XA, now and then