Last Updated on 06/12/2017 by Chris Gampat
All images by Manuel Sechi. Used with permission.
“I initially thought Street Photography was the style I had an aptitude for, so I studied the work of the masters (Bresson, Winogrand, Friedlander, Doisneau, Klein, just to mention some) but after a while I released it doesnât work for me: street photography pushes me to shoot without thinking too much in the attempt to catch the ‘decisive moment’.” Photographer Manuel Sechi describes to us in an email. “Now I prefer a more thoughtful approach so I started working on cityscapes and abstract photography in urban environment, often using long exposure to make disappear the human presence from my pictures. I love to take pictures outdoors.” These days, Manuel idolizes Josef Koudelka, Robert Frank, Salgado, Meyerowitz, Eggleston, Moriyama and in recent times he fell in love with the work of Michael Kenna.
Manuel was born in Italy in 1970 but lives in London. “I spent a large part of my live, mainly involved in musical arts, before to move to Florence to work in Information Technology, in 1999.” he tells us. His interest in photography started out in Tuscany where he got his first digital camera: the Fujifilm S5600. But interestingly enough, something crazy happened.
“Then I bought a Sony DSLR but for some reason I was not able to produce anything satisfying so I put my camera in a drawer. In 2013 I moved to London for work. The big city immediately awakened in myself the desire to resume the camera to document this new adventure in my life, and soon I released I had to take this more seriously.”
After moving to London, Manuel discovered that he really liked working on projects. “I prefer to work on projects, or at least to have in mind some sort of subjects or ideas, and then collect the images around these. If during this process I have an idea for a specific project, then I push myself into it (this was the case of my serie about the magnificent seven cemeteries of London).”
So these days, he shoots with his Fujifilm X-T1 and his kit lens. Manuel loves the kit zoom because it allows him to stay focused instead of needing to switch to another prime lens. More of Manuel’s work is below.
