Claudia Costantini
- Anna Lilli Garai
- Jun 25
- 4 min read
Updated: Jul 1
Claudia Costantini’s work reflects a long, personal engagement with photography as a daily practice and lifeline. Starting with black and white film at the age of nineteen, she developed her visual language through years of experimentation, studies, and quiet observation. Her images are shaped by underexposure and subtle color shifts, capturing moments that feel withdrawn or fragmented. Often working in solitude, she builds on a vast archive of negatives, using the medium as a way to navigate both internal landscapes and the world outside. Her photographs form a steady, ongoing record of presence and disappearance.
Q: When did photography start to feel like something that helped you stay connected to the world?
A: Honestly, I think I've always had curiosity bordering on the pathological—even at fourteen, I was sneaking into my classmates' graphic design and photography lessons while I was stuck in product design. Different times back then; they wouldn't let me switch tracks, and I still curse them for it. But my fascination with photography truly ignited the moment I stepped into that first darkroom. There's something almost alchemical about watching an image emerge in the developer—that's when I knew this was different from anything else I'd encountered.
I spent years convincing my mother I needed a proper camera for university, and finally, at nineteen, I got my hands on one. Black and white film, proper courses—the whole commitment. It was love at first sight, though I'm not entirely sure the feeling was mutual.
My dream was reportage photography. I wanted to document every single day as it unfolded, capture the world as it happened around me.
The costs were astronomical, as you can imagine, but as my friend Pia Valentinis always says: "Love is strange."
Photography became my way of staying present, of really seeing the world instead of just moving through it. Even when the medium seemed to resist me, even when the shots didn't turn out as planned—it kept me connected to moments I might have otherwise missed entirely.
Q: You’ve studied drawing, math, and engineering. What do you carry with you from those experiences when you’re making work now?
A: I studied art history extensively, alongside drawing, mathematics, and all the engineering subjects. What these disciplines left me with was humility—the awareness that I'm just anyone, really. The great Enzo Mari used to say this too. I've had masters to whom I owe everything, including this very consciousness.
You know, digital photography now allows anyone to call themselves a photographer, or worse, an artist. I am neither—I'm not an artist, I'm not a photographer. I have too much respect for art, and for photography as part of it, to make such claims.
In Italy, we have this famous concept of "amoral familism" by Edward C. Banfield—and now we've coined a new term: "amichettismo," basically cronyism more or less. Here, people love to say "my son is a genius," "my daughter is a genius," "my friend is a genius." But you know what? Geniuses are born once in a while, not every day.
This attitude doesn't serve photography or art well, and it's quite widespread here. Even the younger generation, who feel superior to everyone else, they're the same way.
It's a disservice to the medium we claim to love. I prefer to approach photography with the humility my education taught me—knowing that every day I'm still learning, still discovering what this incredible medium can teach me about seeing the world. In public, many people think I'm arrogant, but that's not my concern—I'm simply disgusted by the whole charade.
Q: You stopped showing your work for a long time. What made you decide to return to it now?
A: I'll tell you the truth: I finished the work! I've gathered enough material for dozens of publications that I'll certainly never make—out of laziness and impostor syndrome, if I'm being honest.
Add to this that all my friends have disappeared, and all I had left was to photograph emptiness. So that's exactly what I did.
Q: You describe the feeling of becoming invisible. What do you notice in the moment when you take a photo?
A: Out of curiosity, precisely, I notice everything: traces of human presence (a project from 2009 that's still work in progress), the solitude of a tree, the pattern of a landscape—but always through a deeply personal lens. Mine is always an autobiography. I photograph to fill the void.
Q: Color appears in your images carefully, sometimes unexpectedly. What guides your choices with it?
A: I chose this approach to color because my smartphone—a very basic €200 device—allows me to use pro mode, so I can shift the white point and adjust the channels. This choice of unreal colors I also found in Bill Silano, a fashion photographer I particularly love.
It suggests an altered environment, like a mirror—almost surrealist or close to German cinematic expressionism in its perspectives. Everything contributes to my vision, really.
Q: You’ve kept thousands of negatives. What do they mean to you today?
A: It represents the purpose of my life. Like Araki in his early works, I wanted to photograph every single moment. Then I had a whole series of evolutions, as you can see.
I'd love to create a publication about the youth people of my region in the '90s and 2000s—I have more or less every public event, parties, experiments, people, and so on. Who knows if I'll manage it, I can't tell you for sure. It's an enormous undertaking, but I'd love to close the circle that way, exactly as it began.
In memory of Marco, traveler of the world
To Delia and Lucina
Their light has gone out.
To my master Nane Zavagno
To my professor Manuela Candotti
To Riccardo Toffoletti and Guido Cecere
Last but not least, to my sister Barbara, who is a cosmologist.
