About

Stefano Carotenuto (b. 1984, Naples, Italy). I’m a Designer at the National Research Council of Italy and an amateur street photographer now based in Milan, Italy.

“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

Biography

In 2018 my work was selected by Magnum photographer Martin Parr among the winning photos of the Open Call for Life Framer.

In June 2019 my personal story as a “one-handed street photographer”, along with a selection of my work, was published on Corriere della Sera Style Magazine.

In December 2019, as a finalist at the Miami Street Photography Festival, my work was exhibited during Art Basel Week at HistoryMiami Museum: an international event showcasing the best of contemporary street and documentary photography, giving exposure to up-and-coming photographers from around the globe.

In early 2020 I won the Bangkok Street Photo Festival and the street contest Trofeo Città di Follonica.

In December 2020, among the top 23 photos shortlisted at the Miami Street Photography Festival, my work was live reviewed by photographers Meryl Meisler, Jeff Mermelstein and Magnum photographer Eli Reed.

In April 2022 I won the FIIPA FIOF Italy International Photography Awards (Amateur Cat. People), and in June my work was selected by Magnum photographer Steve McCurry among the top 10 series of the Exibart Street Contest.

In 2023 I was interviewed by Mario Mencacci on FIAF.net, and in October “10 Street Photography” was published by Psicografici Editore, where I’m co-author along with other amazing street photographers.

The diary

This is everything worth keeping, in the order it happened. No series, no projects, no chapters — the pictures arrive the way the days did, and time is the only order I impose on them. What holds them together is a way of walking, not a subject.

Walter Benjamin, reading Baudelaire, described a figure who moves through the city without going anywhere in particular: the flâneur, at home in the crowd, unhurried in a place that hurries, attentive to exactly what the crowd has agreed not to notice. A century later the description still fits, with one difference. The flâneur carried the city home in his head. I carry a small camera.

Nothing here was arranged. No second take, no moving the light, nobody told where to stand. Most days the city gives you nothing and you go home with nothing. Then it hands you something, and you have about a quarter of a second to be ready for it. The waiting is the work. The photographs are what’s left over.

The edit

The pictures here are the ones I stand behind. Instagram and the rest are a workbench: things get tried there, posted half-finished, quietly dropped a week later. This is where they end up once they’ve survived that — and it’s the only place I’d send anyone who wants to see the work.

Recently I converted the archive to black and white. All of it, back to the first frame. So a photograph that ran in colour in an interview or a magazine will turn up here without it, and I’d rather account for that than let it look like a mistake.

Colour was doing work I no longer wanted from it. It dated every picture to the year I happened to process it, and it kept pulling the eye toward whatever was reddest in the frame. What I’m after sits nearer to gesture, light and geometry, and those come through more clearly with one variable taken out. An edit is always made from where you’re standing now: the colour versions aren’t wrong, they’re an earlier edit, fixed at the moment it was made. This one is simply the current one, and it can change again.

Get in touch stefanocarotenuto@gmail.com

For prints, commissions, publishing or just to say hello.
More about my design work on stefanocarotenuto.it.

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
2022, 2021, 2020: Finalist, Italian Street Photo Festival
2022: Winner, FIIPA FIOF Italy International Photography Awards (Amateur Cat. People)
2020: Finalist, Street Photo Istanbul
2020, 2019: 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 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, mostly. Nothing that needs a bag, nothing that announces itself before it’s used — the point is to keep walking, and to be quick.

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
Editing: Lightroom CC, with RNI Film presets
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