PART 5 - PROJECT 1 - COURSEWORK

 AFTER & BEFORE

For many years of my professional life I have worked, and still work, in Companies with hundreds of offices.

Offices come alive every morning, around 8am, and become dislodged around 6pm. 

Every working day. 

Given the managerial nature of my role, I do not have established hours, and I often stay in my office until late at night.

I therefore have the opportunity to see the offices that are emptied, the lights and the computers that go off, the signs of life that thin out with the thinning of the presences, until they reach total silence.

Sometimes, in order to relax and before leaving my office, I walk through the corridors and enjoy this silence.

This time I took a different walk and looked at the empty offices with another eye: the photographer's. 

The offices have a particular feature: when they are empty, we know that they have been "inhabited" some time before and that life will come back some time later, in an infinite circle.

We therefore have this feeling of "transience": we find these signs of interrupted life, or rather suspended (work), on desks, chairs, hangers. 

In any case, these signs, sometimes of professional but of personal life (children photos) as well, tell us a story and tell us about those who use that office, who "inhabits" it, its habits, maybe even its way of doing and being. 

All this reminds me of Roland Barthes in "Camera Lucida" and the chapter on photography of his mother's clothes. 

This time I brought the "here and now" tool (the camera) with me and I photographed these moments between the end of today's work and the beginning of tomorrow's work. 

I used a tripod in order to use only the ambient light and not in any way modify the scenes I found. 

For the same reason I used quite always very closed diaphragms and, in only a few cases, I blurred the background.