The sixties changed the relationship between the city and its inhabitants forever. From the ruins of Victorian austerity and the interminable years of war, arose a “swinging” time that revolutionised the inter-connection between people and their built environment.
London “is” the people who live there. The eight million inhabitants constitute a melting pot of different social classes which for better or worse, cannot be found in other cities. You can find nonchalant gentlemen rolling in the grass with their highly-bred dogs; at the same time and at the same time afro-Caribbean families enjoying a parade; children with hula hoops and women with niqabs shoulder to shoulder with weary women relaxing in park; happy, though chilly, little ballerinas; impatient traders in Portobello; old people, rather overwhelmed, but still mixing with everyone; colourful models, street musicians playing as if at their own home and actors who use the pavements as their own green room.
The city rejects no one, it welcomes all without barriers. Only in London may one take photos like these without anybody batting an eye lid, at worst they point to their eyes as though to say: “look deep into them”.
About Lorenzo Grifantini
Lorenzo Grifantini is an architect founder of a successful architectural company. Architecture and photography, they are somehow interlinked, they both are related to the idea of space, tridimensionality and people interacting with the environment. For me learning photography was a natural and organic process and, compared to architecture in where the whole project’s genesis for conception to completion can take years, photography allowed me to vent my creativity and make a project in the shorter amount of time.
I have had several reportages published on Vice magazine, Causette Magazine. Norwegian Airline Magazine L’oeil de la Photographie,Stern Magazine, Nat Geo Italia, Ddonna La Repubblica, Die Zeit, Lens Culture and Photovogue for Vogue Italia. Vodafone picked one of my pictures from the “Italian summer” reportage for their advertisement campaign in Holland. Ulrich Saidl, director of the acclaimed movie Dog Days awarded at Venice film festival, has chosen me to reportage the shooting of his next movie. [Official Website]
