At the East Side Gallery in Berlin, Carlo Starita saw a stranger open his arms in front of doves painted on the Wall. Using zone focus, he took the picture before the wings and the gesture slipped apart.
A camera at his father’s concerts
As a child, Carlo borrowed his father’s Bencini Comet II at concerts. His father played the cello. Carlo could spend the whole performance taking photographs, even with no film in the camera. At twenty-two, a Canon EOS 3000 helped him learn what changing the aperture and shutter speed would do.
Working in digital printing in the early 2000s, he built a light tent to photograph products. He later photographed ceremonies and worked with a photojournalism agency in Naples, learning from the photographers there. Today he earns his living in another artistic field. That leaves him free to choose what to photograph for himself.
Sharing space in Berlin
It was his first visit to Berlin. The different ways people dressed and occupied the street made it surprisingly easy to photograph, much as it is for him at home in Naples. In one train carriage two women sit apart, with a vacant seat and a red door between them.
On Friedrichstraße he looked for colours that spoke to one another. In another carriage, it was the people standing close together who drew his eye. Sometimes he exchanges a look with someone. Sometimes he stays back to see what unfolds.
Looking at people looking
At Fotografiska, a family portrait on the wall caught his attention beside a projection and two visitors in silhouette. In another room, a figure almost disappears into the shadows facing a brightly lit wall of pictures.
Carlo develops and scans his own negatives. He describes lifting the film out of the tank and finding an image there as a small miracle. Looking through the pictures later, he sometimes recognises a relationship he missed when he pressed the shutter. It is those brief encounters between people, places and glances that he wants to keep exploring.
More photographs in Carlo’s Berlin album, on Lomography and on Instagram.
Interview and English editing by Emiliano Vittoriosi, Berlin Photo Studio.
