Francesco Romoli: when photography mixes reality with fantasy

Francesco Romoli is a young Italian photographer from Pisa.

His work narrates a story through images, while transmitting sensations we usually find in the fantasy aspects of movies or books.

His photos present a particular attention to the geometry of shapes and an accurate digital retouch that is never excessive.

"After a few months I realized that photography was not enough to express what I felt, I wanted to create something that did not exist. I started using Photoshop. My style is a mix between photography and digital graphics.

I make much use of Photoshop.

Of course, my studies have helped me to fully understand this tool (I studied computer science).

I have a good familiarity with the computer tools, then learning how to use Photoshop was not very difficult", Romoli stated while explaining why he chose to not limit himself to just photography.

Romoli's most famous series of works is titled "Imaginary Towns".

Here, his intention was not to capture the soul of the urban life, but to produce the scenery through digital collages created with cardboard models and detailed editing with a photo manipulation program.

The reproduction of snippets of cities shows a gash of poetry and suggestion: soft lights that define the buildings in ruins and deserted landscapes that revoke melancholy.

Romoli broadens his work with various ideas. For one, another collection of photographs he worked on titled "Postcards From the Future", is a series of portraits, purposely aged, with elements that recall the most negative aspects of modern life.

Heads were replaced by phone and television devices to create a new humanity.

From this project and on, Romoli continues to create more elaborate work, constantly putting together what our eyes are used to seeing coinciding with what our imagination creates in our minds.