Famous photoartists of the world, 2008-2011
Valerio Perini Exhibition, Florence, Italy

I am a 50 year-old photographer born in a small town few miles away from Florence, Italy, and I still live here. I first pressed a camera button of Kodak Istant when I was 18 or 20, I don't remember exactly. Only at the age of 24 I really understood the meaning of the word "photography", and that was due to Loris, a good photographer and a very good colleague. He used to take mostly black&white photos and printed them by himself in the dark-room, and taught me everything he knew about that.

The first reflex camera I bought was a Nikkormat FT3 with the classic 50, 28 and 135 mm, later on, I also bought a 20, 85 mm and a second Nikon FM. In 1979 together with my wife we started the photoclub "La Torretta", involving many people from my small village and neighbourhood.We started with a social clubshow, in 1980, we organized the 1st regional contest and in a year, the national contest "La Torretta". We have been honoured by FIAF in 1982, 1983 and 1984, and our contest became an important event for all Italian photographers. At the same time, in cooperation with the City Government we were taking photos of the area for the public archive and I was working with war memorials, which later presented in a photoshow.

Going back to my own photos, I’ve been very lucky those days as only in 4 years of FIAF contests (1981-1984) I had 191 entries (176 for black&white photos) that consented me to have a FIAF STAR. I won many national and international prizes and showed my photos in Hong-Kong, Singapore, Republic of South Africa (port of Durban), France and England. Some photos were published in 4 FIAF year books (in 1982-1985), in SICOF year book in 1982 and in the magazines Fotografare and Reflex.

At the end of 1984, I had to give up. For personal reasons I had no time for photos or contest organization, but those years always live in my heart as an important occasion due to acquaintances with different people and countries.

In December 2004, I really passed through a very difficult moment of my life, but luckily discovered my old camera and with a new digital one I went on in search of adventure.

A year later, I entered FotoClub Firenze, where I found many friends and the joy of competition. September saw my photos in National Contests again! So I got the first prize in FIAF contest in Italy and won some international: The Al-Thani Award 2006 in Qatar, The Trierenberg Super Circuit 2007 in Austria, the 12th International Exibition in Lishui (China) and the Photovernissage 2007 in Rivne (Ukraine). I also had a number of publications in Italian photographic Magazines.

Photography is very important for me. It helps to catch the particular moment, it's like drawing an emotion. And I know that my heart and the love I feel for anything alive, play an important role in everything I do. That is why I don’t want to alter the situation I see, but eventually I personalize my shots by changing my position or using different lenses, while with the computer I only interfere on colour contrast, on the lights and squaring the images, like I used to do in the dark-room. I print my photos by myself because doing this in professional print shops would be like sharing my work with them and I belive that this would detract something from the feel of my pctures.

www.perinivalerio.it