One of the exhibits was of paintings by Fernando Botero, an artist I particularly like. The other exhibit was a photographic one: “Magnum America. The United States“.

Looking at the Magnum exhibits I got more pissed at every image. All the show was pure anti-American propaganda. Not a single picture was showing anything positive about the USA. Zero, nada. All of the images with their captions were just 100% propaganda to show the “dark side” of capitalism, free market and free people.

Check out the video if you want to hear the details.

It’s a fact that I have a soft spot for the USA, I love the Founding Fathers and what they created. I don’t pretend to see only the positive aspects of the USA and the free market culture, but there is not a single exhibits in the last years, specially if by Magnum photographers, that is not pure negativity about the USA.

It’s always some propaganda, anti-American, anti-Israel, promoting the climate change scam or whatever is the propaganda of the moment.

It’s not just sad and wrong, it’s 100% predictable and boring!

Art needs freedom!

Too bad every day we have less and less freedom in the EU.

My generation grew up with the dream of a big hi-fi system and I still have the desire to listen music in the proper way, not out of a cheap radio or, even worse, a smartphone.

I got the new Fosi Audio BT20A Max amplifier to create a desktop system for my computer but when I tested it on my main hi-fi system I was really surprised! The quality of this little amplifier is really good. I lot of dynamic and staging!

Check out the video and visit Fosi Audio official website where you can have 10% discount with the code LUIGIBARBANO

See you next time!

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Usually for my Christmas photograph I follow the big events of the year, and you can see in this article what I did in the past, but this year I decided to stay far away from the world events. I simply decided that I had two choices: getting very upset with how the world is run and be very polemic and political or concentrating on my passion for photography. I chose the latter.

I decided to create an homage to film photography.

First of all in the last years I started to use again film for a lot of my artistic production. Second this year was a great year for film photographers; Leica produced again the film camera M6 and Pentax announced, just few days ago, that will again produce analog cameras.

It’s really a great moment for film photography because the involvement of big companies in the analog field means film is not dead and there will be a revival as there was in music with vinyl.

We have to remember we are analog creatures and sometime is fundamental for us to have analog experiences and spend our time far from the artificial digital world. We need it to remember we are able to enjoy infinite nuances, much more than a digitally converted world will be able to give us. We need analog experiences to remember that the human beings and our beautiful world cannot be translated in approximated numbers. We really need to remind to ourselves that the life must be lived in person and is not meant to be spend interacting with a computer.

I wish your 2023 will be full of analog experiences, in photography and in life.

Just kidding, but after I made the video you can check here, where I talk about the new trend of AI creating photography, this idea came to my mind… what if? lol

Let me know what you think about the use of AI in the creation of art!

I wish you a great Christmas, filled with joy and the right personal choices!

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This is a strange Christmas with too many people trying to cancel it, some for cultural reasons as the European Commission, others finding excuses in a virus that seem to spread only in specific situations.

It is always difficult to find a proper reaction to evil when it’s in charge of our lives, so I was wondering what to do and the question came natural: “What would John Galt do?”. The answer was very easy and so here’s my traditional Christmas image for the year 2021!

This year, more than ever, we are in a war, it’s not a traditional war at the moment but a cultural war. One side is the side expressing all the values that permit to appreciate and enjoy Christmas, the other side is the side that is not able to joy and wants to cancel it.

The premise of Christmas is the freedom to chose between good and evil, Santa made a list and only the nice ones receive his gifts. Christmas is the season when joy must be deserved, it is the season that celebrates the birth of Jesus, a man who taught us that we are all equal and free to chose, a man who at the end gave his life to eliminate the evil represented by the pretense of an original sin defined by evil people to impose their power on others using guilt as their main weapon.

No matter if you look at the Christian faith as believer or simply as an observer of human and political changes, in both ways the meaning of Christmas is clear. The reason why a lot of powerful people is trying to cancel Christmas is exactly to eliminate that meaning.

To be good must be a choice and as a choice we are good toward people deserving it. It’s a season to donate to other deserving people, the nice on Santa’s list. It’s the season to celebrate the fact that we as human are equal and none of us must be considered inferior or guilty for something other people did.

We are in an era when some people in powerful positions want us to believe the opposite of Christmas. They want us to believe we are guilty because we were born with a specific color of our skin, they want us to believe we are guilty if we do not chose to follow their stupidity of the moment also if we see it clearly and think it’s evil, they want us to believe is their right to rule us also when the rules are wrong, they want us to forget reason and substitute our believes in freedom with their believes in controlling us. They want to cancel the basis of freedom and cancel a popular tradition easy to understand by everybody as Christmas, it’s an easy way, much easier than debating the centuries of philosophy that created the western culture of freedom. They want us to forget our power to give to whom deserve, they want us to give them the power to steal all our money so they can decide who is worth of receiving.

In Christmas we can find all the words to express the best of the human kind: freedom, generosity, joy, equality, love, responsibility, choice, etc. etc. They want to substitute all with the new language they use to rule us: a limited freedom, fair share, guilty joy, equity, duty, settled science and so on.

It’s a war, and it’s a war we can win and are winning. To win it we have just to keep to ourselves our values and love for life and give nothing to them. They cannot enjoy Christmas, we can and we must not make the mistake to share it with undeserving people. To win we must not just chant “Let’s go Brandon”, we must deeply feel it and act accordingly.

On the technical side I had some fun using an 8×10″ view camera, a Black and White film, printing in the darkroom and hand painting the image. A video of that will come soon on YouTube… if my GoPro worked properly!

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While trying to predict the weather I’m working on the new project: Travelgraph, a photo magazine, or photozine (term I dislike but is what young people search for on Google!) dedicated to places.

First issue will be Camogli, a beautiful village in the Italian Liguria region.

I’m going through a lot of images trying to select the right ones to tell a story and describe properly the beauty and atmosphere of the place.

I the meantime I’m waiting for an 8×10 camera I just bought. This will be a new fun adventure with film. I’m used to view cameras, with 4×5. Bigger negative will mean even better quality and probably around $20 for every shot… so a very slow process and a lotof wait for a picture that is worth!

I just wanted to give you an update and tell you the new project will be ready to be shared soon.

Take care and watch Phil if you are in USA and remember he is the opposite of La Candelora tradition, so choose which one you prefer!

The book can be previewed and bought here on Blurb.

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I kept the book very simple, with a short version of the tales and just location and camera used for each picture.

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See you with the new projects…

If you prefer a video version, just watch it here, but if you prefer to read go on.

I’m really glad in January 2020, before the shit hit the fan badly, I decided to start my Black and White Tales project. It was a great way to keep myself busy and stay in touch with the world and my creative mind while we entered the Covid jail we still have to leave!

That project taught me a lot about myself and my photographic style and preferences. I got even more involved with film thanks to the images I found in my archive and really loved.

If you followed the projects from the beginning I owe you a big thank you. If you did not just click here and enjoy it. If you do not click and check it out nothing will happen to you but you will make me sad and that will perhaps heavily influence your Karma!

Another success of 2020 was the publication of my book about fine art ink-jet printing. It is the English version of the one I published few years ago in Italian and contains some obvious updates. Check it out.

The Black and White Spider Award is one of my favorite awards, it always have so many beautiful photographs submitted and very high standards. I had three images nominated, one in the Fine Art category and two in the People category. Not bad at all.

Photography for me is always a great way to meet new people and hear new stories.

In 2009 while photographing Ginseng farmers I took a picture of Abe Vang, a Hmong farmer who was a refugee from Laos and passed away recently. I always loved that picture because I felt a connection with Abraham also if we spoke for few minutes.

Craig Thompson, a comic book designer contacted me to use the picture for the issue about Abe Vang of his comics series dedicated to Wisconsin ginseng farming. It was great to learn Abe’s story and create a new connection.

Even in a shitty year I manage to have satisfactions from my job! Not bad.

Now the projects for 2021.

First of all I will take a break until the end of January, to organize myself and to relax a little.

I have no idea what the year will bring, but the beginning already brought a lot of censorship on social media so I will start to upload my video also on Rumble and move away from FaceBook and other traditional social media. You can find me on MeWe, if you like to stay in touch.

Photographically I intend to produce 10 magazines and 10 fine art portfolios, about 10 different places. I will continue to make videos and talk about the pictures involved in the project… Rumble or Youtube I will find a way also if I expect some censorship due to my libertarian ideas I have no problem to express.

I will also continue the Gear Talk series, so expect more reviews of old film cameras!

It is all for now, stay tuned and see you at the end of the month.

Merry Christmas my friends, and a wonderful next year full of rebellion to tyranny and regained freedom for all of us!

Just click on the image if you like to see it enlarged.

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See you next year my friends.

A project that helped me stay alive in this crazy world.

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I hope you enjoyed it, now is time for me for some postpartum depression and I will be back in January with other projects to share with you.