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Foto Omnia. Ugo Borsatti,. We are together, in his photo studio, in Trieste, via Gatteri. Time to close, to go home almost. Come in, come in. I’ll get two chairs for you. If we can, and if we don’t disturb you ... how do feel, working on the Mac? Well … I feel. I work on this, I work on that – on Pc … quite complex, overall. Mac is better than Pc, maybe, for my activities, but since I have to keep both … So, Mr. Borsatti. Stefano is president of dotART, you know each other already. I’m kind of a journalist. I’m very happy to meet you. Ugo. It’s ok. I’m kind of a journalist too. I’m one of the oldest members of the Order of Journalists, I’m a publicist. Time ago I was reporter for ‘Crimen – Criminology and Forensic Police’ … it actually used to be a joke too: ‘What are you, a journalist? Wouldn’t you be working for ‘Crimen’ though, uh?’ – a way to tease. Name changed constantly, anyhow: ‘Chronicle’, ‘Detective’, ‘Detective Crimen’ … crime only, of course. I started sending my pictures only, then they asked me the captions too, and then in the end they proposed me to write the articles too. Yes. Now, at last, they admit photographers right to be considered journalists too. Was there, a bit of ... annoyance, from journalists side, towards photographers? Sure there was. Used to be two distinct branches: rivals, in a way. Once, the journalist was the one that used to write the article; the photographer, in their view, wasn’t important. Recently instead, I had a big gratification, at Circolo Fotografico Fincantieri Wärtsilä. Two or three months ago, at the end of a meeting presenting some of my old pictures to public, Luciano Ceschian, who was director of ‘Il Piccolo’, stood up and said: ‘Excuse me a moment, may I? There’s Borsatti here with us. I remember an article I wrote for ‘Il Gazzettino’, I was describing a storm at sea, working and writing and re-writing it, long hours; then comes Ugo Borsatti and he gives us a picture, and in front of that picture, everything I had written was suddenly and simply … nothing’. I was very pleased. We used to work together, me and Ceschian, for ‘Il Gazzettino’ – for ‘Il Gazzettino’, I worked long, eighteen years. That ‘caste’ of journalist, was always there, and the photographer used to be underestimated in its ability. Ugo, how many years have you been in business? Exactly sixty. September 1st this year. From 1952. I’m working on a book, about this ‘birthday’: not only photographic. On different years and period of times. I care very much about this book; sixty years of career May I ask at what age you began photographing? Well, yesterday was my birthday ... Happy Birthday! Thanks, thanks. And so a friend of mine called me and he said: ‘Many wishes for your Fifty-Eight!’ – it’s inverted, of course. Just turned Eighty-Five. I started my career late, otherwise it would be longer already. I studied to be a surveyor, I graduated when Second World War ended. After that I did a little bit of everything … the surveyor, too, working for Comune di Trieste. In that period it was subject to Allied administration. Then I worked for Censimento, in 1951, the census … done that, they took me working on ID cards for the Allied Territory, near Trieste; ID cards used to be that big, blue, written in four languages. And then photography. As a boy I had done something about photography, one particular picture too, I’ll show you later … What did you take? I lived here nearby, in via della Ginnastica Triestina, the street that led from the barracks to the city center. In 1943, September 8th – I was a student, still – here Badoglio’s proclamation: ‘Germans are bad!’ And they got angry, even fairly angry in their own view, certainly. Germans were escorting Italian soldiers down from the barracks, along via Ginnastica and towards a military garrison. I had a photo camera at hand, used to be my brother’s, with a strange very expensive film, difficult to find it on the market. Looking between the window shutters, half open, half closed, with my mom screaming at me in whispers: ‘No! They may shoot! Come here!’ – I was able to take three pictures. Later, they become famous. Were printed many times: one, enlarged, is in Risiera di San Sabba. They show those pictures in celebrations. My first important pictures. You had courage. To take pictures of German soldiers while escorting, armed, Italian prisoners. I didn’t think about it, I had the camera there, it just seemed an important moment, and I took the pictures. What gave you inspiration to start your career? My dad was an old amateur of photography. He used to take pictures and develop it on slabs, he used to try to have nice pictures. Something in our genes, so, probably, and I followed his trail. After those first important pictures I started trying to work, I took my license – license were blocked, since 'Associazione degli Artigiani' – Artisans Association – had succeeded in convincing the local police chief that they needed to be released only in presence of a positive allowance from Artisans side. Madness! Did you have already color film available when you started? No, at the very beginning, here, in the Forties, we had not. Kodachrome and Agfacolor dates back to the end of the Thirties and so, everything that was ‘color’ was very difficult to find. I did not have any color film or color development available. I was working in black and white. What camera did you use? Depending on the time period, I had Rolleiflex, Leica … in the early days I owe a Voigtlander Prominent, just released. The only 35mm with central shutter, it allowed me to work with the small flashlight I had, seven-kilos-flashy. So, here, this is my first professional picture, I was still waiting my license, still missing some day; I was admiring my camera, looking at it all around in my hands, then my dad tells me: ‘Go, go, down in the courtyard!’ – I go down, in the dark courtyard, no light meter, I had nothing at all, and with my eyes I guessed the position, and I was lucky because the mouse was lifting up the paw, just a second more and everything would be blurred, just a blot and nothing more. These, instead, were women carrying milk … Basovizza, Trieste and back. Twenty kilometers per day, leaving aside all the staircases they had to climb to reach their customers. This, instead, is the sea storm, that one mentioned by Ceschian, when he was talking about the article that he would throw away once my picture was delivered to the newspaper … we had never seen such high waves, indeed. Libeccio, in the day of Ferragosto, fifteenth of August. Your nicest picture? Here it comes. I would not know if I’d say ‘the niciest’; I’d say, the pictures with most significance between mine pictures. The soldier that kisses the girl, on the train platform. Trieste in 1954. She’s no more, she passed away; she went in the United Stated, I met them – a wonderful moment – and I kept in touch with them later. She was together with the boy who kissed her, forever. Do you like color pictures? No. Well, yes, in short. But I like black and white more. It is absurd to say: ‘I do not like color’; color, why not. But I love black and white. What’s the difference between color and black and white, in your opinion? Shooting in black and white is more difficult. I’ve always been in reportage pictures, anyway, not artistic photography. Some art photography I did too, but few pictures. As I said, I like color, it’s absurd to tell I don’t. When I was going to holidays, I shot and used to prepare color slides. Black and white, apart the special charm they get, has a value … when they started selling those first Instamatic cameras, everyone felt to be a little bit a photographer, it happened much more earlier than digital photography. ‘What a nice picture!’ – and they put their children there, one with the red shirt, the girl with the yellow shirt. ‘Oh how nice, all colored!’. Quite colored. A little bit too much. When we used to work with the Rollei, if we shot black and white a picture of the trees, you used to see it in nice grey, almost all in the same grey, and then you used to realize you needed to understand how to use a filter. You needed to learn translating the picture, in short – translating black and white. Understand and play with the shadows. Can’t say I hate color; but then a customer comes, and he says to me: ‘I have a digital camera, and with that one I take wonderful pictures!’ … in automatic mode, everything is exaggerated there, colors that does not have anything of real. I do not like it, no. With the digital camera, everything is easier, but you lack understanding. And what do you think about digital photography? An huge achievement. I have only one thing against a digital picture: its life. People does not print the picture on paper anymore, and so … one day, it’s gone. It is lost. In example with a colleague of mine, one of his customer, a lady that used to travel a lot … boxes of pictures. One day, she asks him: ‘But now, everyone has these digital cameras … could I buy one too?’ – ‘Surely you can, Missus, if you like to, why not’. ‘Ah then well, well, now I’ll put in the computer, then you’ll show me how to do it, you’ll teach me … ‘ – ‘Sure, Missus.’ Afterwards, when all it’s done, he doesn’t hear from her anymore, long time. Another day, he met her and asks: ‘How are you doing?’ – ‘Oh, so nice, it’s gorgeous, every night I look at my pictures on the computer, it’s wonderful, more than two thousands already, wondrous!’ – ‘But, Missus … some printout, would you do it?’ - ‘Oh yes, I’ll do … but not for now, it’s so nice to see it there!’ So a certain day, after time again, the phone rings. ‘Listen: I think I touched something on the computer. I do not see the pictures anymore. Would you come and help me?’ ... ‘Missus, you know, you will not see those pictures anymore, you know? Hard disk broke’. Almost, she fainted. ‘But did you do some printout, Missus?’ She had not print a single...