By Angelica Cantù Rajnoldi

The great photographer Franco Fontana claims that “color is the place where our brain and the universe meet.” With this statement, he interprets color as a beautiful instrument to reinvent reality in a more idealistic and deeply personal way. After reading his book Creative Photography, I finally realized that taking color photographs is a different and a much more difficult task for a photographer.

With black-and-white photography, I have always felt like I am taking very realistic pictures, and the final result always seems to be exactly how I want it to be. With color photography, I discovered that the process involved is totally different. Color is the door of imagination. If you take color pictures, you can see unexpected meanings and interpretations come to light.

Through this project, I discovered color as a significant means to interpret and analyze my deeper emotions. Yellow is never just a color. It is something that conveys different emotions, just as its millions of nuances do. The same happens with violet, orange, green, brown, and so on.

When I started taking color pictures, I noticed I focused a lot on different blue nuances. I can remember very well that in the beginning, what I desired the most was silence, order and calm. Blue became a symbol of that personal necessity. I also felt a strong need for justice and reaction — that’s why later I started to focus more on red.

I finally realized that I was not only taking pictures of colors. What I was trying to do was give a concrete representation and analysis of my feelings. In the beginning, I used to take black-and-white pictures and avoid lively colors, but now I am starting to fall deeply in love with color photography. Perhaps it is because I was afraid of feeling some emotions. What I am sure about now is that the result has not only been a project, but a long journey that lasted four months.

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