Mark Cassino Photography - Photo Galleries

In 2012 I was feeling in frustrated with my photography and wanted to take on something new, going in a different direction from my core work. I started looking through various photo books, and stumbled into Pictures Come From Pictures by Carl Chiarenza. The brilliant black and white photographs  presented in this book were extremely inspiring and I tasked myself with shooting one roll of B&W film a day with the intent of working towards more abstract themes.

The only rule I set was to limit the photographs to my home or (since I was travelling a lot those days) to where ever I was sleeping. Very quickly, I settled on working in black and white, to emphasize form without the distraction of color. After a while I also settled on using film for this project, in part to force myself to be more in the moment (no going back to review the last photo) and also because the film grain itself is a concrete detail that balances some of the very abstract forms in the images.

Most of these photos are simply of shadows - often close up of  moving shadows of leaves waving in the breeze. But many of the photos are of common everyday items. There is no digital manipulation other than tone and contract adjustments (sometimes extreme). I do try to introduce motion into these photos, either through a moving subject or by moving the camera.