I am shooting in one of the worst places in the world: sharm el sheik.
(the client who eventually will read this column, don’t worry, to shoot swimwear when in italy is raining cats and dogs and it looks like scotland in November this is perfect…).
I was saying it is one of the worst places to come on holidays.
So many stories to tell, or at least, do a photo shoot like martin parr.

But I do not have time to write nevermind to martinparrinize.

I’d like to say a quick thing though:
For all the egyptians in italy, cutting the story short, all of you, we are a little racist and we think that the egyptian in milan is, how do I say it, worst than us. Us from the western world, we modern, them the opposite.
Then you come here.
The westerners that are here where I am, are animals. Fat, bold, nobody knows a language besides bergamasco, they lay in the pool 200 meters from the sea, assault the buffet like crazy grasshoppers stuffing themselves with everything, they read (when it’s good) mostly gossip magazines, they have spoiled and uneducated children that scream and play playstation, dressed in horrible manners, with big dolce & gabbana sunglasses and zebra striped pants from roberto cavalli. Ok?!? Have you got the idea?

The egyptians that we met speak italian better than the italians that are here, they speak enlgish, are educated, are cultured, are dressed in a moderated way… in short WE are the animals, and THEY are the gentlemen.

Stop, that’s it
And on top of all I hate the heat
(the client who eventually will read this column, don’t worry, everything is going very well…)

design 10
Fashion 0

May those knowitall dickheads from the fashion world learn: events full of people, thousands of things open democratically to the people, lively, italian talent taken to the extreme worldwide.. All of this and more at the design week in milan.

Above here the rockstar fabio novembre and the artist emiliano ponzi during the preparation of fabio’s exhibition, where the worker’s scaffolding reminds us of the final scene boloved by all of us and reproduced on the screens at fabio’s exhibition: 8 and ½ by fellini..

tomorrow is the opening at the triennale in milan “November’s flower”, a fantastic exhibition by fabio novembre of which I was lucky enough to see the preparation this evening: everything is really incredible, fabio’s art, emiliano ponzi’s drawings, the lighting, giuliano sangiorgi’s music, the preparation..

Maybe I am taking sides a little, because fabio is more than a friend.
But believe me, if you can go and check it out.

Above here the cover of urban magazine, that came out today, with a portrait of fabio done by me, where emiliano’s drawing is projected on his body and the shadow detaches from reality becoming itself a drawing..

I would like to write a couple of words (check out the presumption!) on the earthquake that has hit a few days ago the abruzzo region.

Honestly there is a lot to write on the subject, but I would like to focus on one: the issue on the houses that were flattened as if they were made of sand.

Everyone was astonished, everyone shouted scandal, everyone was shocked!

Astonishing?!?!
Scandalous?!?!
Shocking?!?!

Before writing this post I would have liked to go and photograph a square near my house here in milan which a few years ago (I could say months) was restructured completely as new, because of a parking lot which was constructed below it.
I would have liked to show you the marble slabs that are already falling to pieces, the floor tiles already broken, the wooden benches with it’s broken planks: complete chaos.
I am sure that everyone of you thinking of your own city, in the north, in the center and in the south of italy will have a thousand examples in his mind: so I avoided taking the usual photos..

The houses in abruzzo broke down because they were built by ignorant geometers that in the evening watch the big brother, from architects and engineers that passed with a political six from more ignorant professors than them and parents of who knows who.
Houses built against all regulations and condoned.
Houses built by alien workforce: nothing against congolese bricklayers, but are we sure they can build a wall? Is it not because they were “hired” because they cost half of the half of the ones that know how to build a wall?!?

Nowadays everyone looks for the rotten apples that have made it possible for the houses to collapse, the little problem, the little defect: there aren’t any rotten apples, there isn’t a little problem, there isn’t a little defect.
It’s simply the system that is totally and absolutely sick.

Everyone is astonished that the houses collapsed: maybe it would have been astonishing if they stayed up?

If you ever say the classic phrase to someone
“DO-YOU-THINK-THAT-I-AM-AN-IDIOT?!?!”

I’ll give you a terrible news:
He REALLY thinks that you are an idiot and, even worst, you actually ARE an idiot.

I wouldn’t want to complain about my absolutely wonderful profession which I’ve chosen for myself. But there is a problem, frequent and constant, this profession has it…

Introducing the introduction: this that I am about to say has nothing to do with friends which eventually might feel involved in the lines that are about to follow. I really have nothing against you, and I am more than happy to have done what I have done when I’ve done it. Honestly.

Let’s get to the point here: a classical classic situation is when someone finds out what I do and asks me for a photograph. Free, off course.
“you are a photographer?!?!
Cool!
Could you take a picture of my pretty face? At my hotel? At my boat? At my house?”
I assure you, it’s a classical classic moment of the classics.

It’s not like I meet an accountant and I hit the “are you an accountant?!? How nice! Would you do a contract for free? Come on, what’s it going to cost you!”, “are you a dentist?!?!?! How radical! Tomorrow can you pull my tooth out? Come on, what’s it going to cost you!”, “ you are a fisherman?!?! How nice! Will you give me two basses?!?!”, “you own a restaurant!!!”………….
Only in photography do you get the unrelenting question: “you are a photographer?!?! Nice! I’ll bring you my little daughter so that you can take a few pictures of her??? …will you take my passport photo???”
I think that the photographer is the only profession that has nurtured within this characteristic. The more I think about it the more I am convinced that there isn’t another. “are you a hooker?!? Cool! Could you give me a blowjob for free!come on! What is it going to cost you!” no, thinking good about it you’ll realise that even there it won’t work…

So I would then like to say this:
Mine is a fucking profession like any other, to which I give all my energies which you can’t even begin to imagine, since the age of 12 I’ve been studying it and practicing it and now I am 46 years old and I don’t think of anything else the whole damn day, so to ask for the fucking photo to the car for the insurance is offensive towards me and towards everything I’ve worked real hard during these years, and I’m still doing now in this precise moment for those of you who are on holidays, on easter day, i am here working.
Therefore the only reasonable answer here is: f-u-c-k-y-o-u.

Ps#01
If when you asked me to take some photographs I gave you a written note with www.benedusi.it/blog 11/aprile/2009, now you know why
Ps#02
For all the rest of you: I am happy to take pictures for friends, like the fisherman is happy to give his best fish to his best friend.

i know I am the first one to raise the issue about italian photographers, with their italian creativity and all this self sufficient crusade… but I am starting to think that they might be right, that it is necessary to go to paris, london, new york…

I know too well, it’s not nice to speak bad about photographers or advertising agencies.
It’s not nice, it’s nasty and conterproducing for me.
But I cannot resist…

So: this here above is the print ad for the tuscany region which came out not too long ago in all the magazines.
Must I say something, or will you go for it by yourselves?!?!
Let’s stay calm…
A deep breath…

Ok, I’ll go:
We, italians, have tuscany. Which the whole world envies. With it’s majestic hills. With florence. With the sea. With the medieval rural towns. In short, TUSCANY! so to advertise the beautiful and fantastic tuscany these guys have come up with:
A damsel (ok, marta cecchetto) dressed in a terrible wedding dress (!?!?!), hair and make up done up terribly like a bride, framed by a super tacky golden frame, with a background of a terrace similar to versailles.
A terrifying thing.
It could be an ad for many other things or many other places (south italian bridal dress making company, of the city of saint petersburg…) but never ever of the tuscan region!
Isn’t it?!?

It’s not perfect though, it was almost reached.
And it would have been reached with a beautiful damsel of colour perhaps instead of marta cecchetto.
Yes!
Because during those days miss naomi campbell http://www.corriere.it/spettacoli/09_marzo_15/naomi_campbell_paura_invecchiare_4eebe9b6-1170-11de-a75c-00144f02aabc.shtml was complaining about the fact that she didn’t get chosen for the campaign. Because she likes tuscany so much.

Pity it would have really been the top, the cherry on the cake: a black girl, dressed up like a bride from puglia, hair and make up like a chinese bride, with a frame stolen from versailles and decorated like the sanremo festival, on a terrace of saint petersburg.. There that would have been a beautiful ad for the tuscan province!

Try this thing here: it’s incredible!
http://ge.ecomagination.com/smartgrid/#/augmented_reality

I tell you immediately, you need:
A computer, with a webcam
A printer
It doesn’t work with safari, with firefox it does

The evening lies down
On roofs and street lamps
And on the misty windows of bars
And the cold eats
Our minds and our hands
And where is the colour of amber?
He recalls Italy’s light
And sun
Which Dante sang in autumn

For I stay close to you
And you know why
Stay close to me
Tonight and tomorrow if you can

Do you remember Via Roma
The moon was smiling
There I chose you and wanted you for me
You looked at me and talked
About your weird faces
About the eyes you deprived of age
And now the evening melts
In Pernods, in coffees
In the memories we have of ourselves
You betrayed for love
You died to live
You ran away this far to find me
Because Livorno gives glory
Only to exile
And it gives celebrity to the dead

But I stay close to you
In silence beside you
Stay close to me
Tonight and tomorrow if you can

Tonight and other nights
Will come even if
We don’t hear singing anymore
We’ll listen to the rain
Wetting our colours
And mixing my thoughts with yours
Dawn breaks and I’m afraid
Of standing and being
Alone, forgetting about us

So I stay close to you
Even though you don’t see that
I am here, close to you
Tonight and tomorrow
I will be…

Vinicio capossela
http://disk.benedusi.it/capossela/01%20Mod%EC.mp3

Photo by settimio benedusi, milan

i get angry for the nepotism in the fashion world (when it’s in the hospitals or in the universities, even worst…)
And the packaging they’ve done in milan with porta romana.. But this one beats them all! Thanks to luca soffri’s blog http://www.wittgenstein.it I found out, as you can see above here, that the ponte dei sospiri in venice (which is that little thing in the middle of the photograph) is having a worst time.

Shame on you!
We are really a population of dickheads.
But it is our fault, only ours. Because we are dickheads, ignorant and because of this we are accomplices.
Actually I would try to take a little step forward: the fashion world, of the hospitals and of the universities is the triumph of nepotism and it is public through the total destruction for a simple fact. Because I, settimio benedusi, am I dickhead ignorant and nepotist, lover of power and the use of every single nefariousness to obtain maximum, at other’s expense.
Is this perhaps the very first step to hope that things will change?
The entire body is sick because its core is sick.
We are not spectators, we are also always actors.
And accomplices. Always accomplices…