5 Decades of Moments in Time: Interview With Photographer Augusto De Luca
- Liz Publika
- Jul 11
- 12 min read
by Liz Publika
“I can say with conviction that today I consider myself a serene and deeply happy man,” states Augusto De Luca. The accomplished photographer, teacher, and commercial artist — whose industrious career has spanned five decades — has earned that serenity. By following his passions, achieving considerable international success, and sharing his skills with new generations of photographers, he’s had a self-realization journey that most creatives hope to experience for themselves.
De Luca was born in Naples on July 1, 1955. At that time, being an only child in an Italian household meant that unlike many of his peers, he had no siblings to play with. So he occupied his time with creative hobbies. Formal studies did not appeal to him, but he did have a love for learning, which he pursued on his own when he found interests that retained his attention. Perhaps his situation was a blessing in disguise; it allowed him to learn self-direction, a skill that served him well throughout his professional life.
He did not grow up pursuing photography.
Before he ever stepped into a dark room, De Luca completed classical studies and even earned a law degree. But the trajectory of his life shifted in the mid 1970s, when a serendipitous event changed everything and inspired him to dedicate his life to photography. Since then, his work has been featured in the National Library of Paris, the Municipal Photographic Archive of Rome, the International Polaroid Collection in the United States, and the Musée de la Photographie in Charleroi, and the China National Aesthetic Arts Gallery in Beijing — as well as elsewhere.
While De Luca is known for maintaining unwavering attention to shape, atmosphere, and composition, one can argue that his real talent lies in portraying permanence and timelessness. Analyzing his work, it becomes clear that he uses framing, shadows, geometry, abstraction, and symbolism to create images that exist outside of any one specific date. This is true for much of his art, which stretches across portraiture, urban photography, and metaphysical works.
In Roma Nostra — De Luca’s large-format photography book first published in 1996 by Gangemi Editore — Rome is a city suspended outside of time. By removing anything that would anchor the images to a specific moment, the work highlights the city’s symbolic weight. The book’s importance was underscored by the 1996 “Città di Roma” prize; the following year its photographs were shown at Milan’s il Diaframma gallery, cementing De Luca’s reputation.
His commercial work includes album covers and advertising campaigns. Around 2005, after returning to Naples, he began collecting colorful paper drawings from the city’s walls to preserve them, an activity that made him known as “The Graffiti Hunter” after Il Mattino published a story about him; while some street artists initially accused him of stealing their work, the conflict later evolved into dialogue through Iabo’s ironic response video, Iabo cattura il Cacciatore di Graffiti.
Over the years, the renowned photographer has immortalized many well-known figures, including musicians Renato Carosone and Rick Wakeman, prima ballerina and actress Carla Fracci, multidisciplinary artist Hermann Nitsch, and actress Pupella Maggio. He’s also captured images of numerous iconic European cities. It’s an honor to interview Augusto De Luca and document his life’s work for the Art of Time volume in ARTpublika Magazine.
What was your childhood like? And what about your teenage years?
Even though my family environment was filled with love and care, my childhood was marked by deep sadness and a sense of loneliness. As an only child, I grew up surrounded exclusively by adults, which made me feel somewhat distant from my peers and resulted in emotional isolation.
My family came from a well-off background and had distinctive characteristics: my mother, a homemaker, came from a noble family, while my father was a dental surgeon with many passions — beekeeping, ornithology, and entomology. My parents hoped I would pursue a medical career. However, I never developed a genuine academic interest. I always did what was required, putting in the minimum necessary effort.
From the age of twelve, I nurtured my love of music by teaching myself to play the guitar. From adolescence onward, I took part in numerous rock groups, performing at venues in the evenings while attending school during the day. Music was a source of great fulfillment and an important means of self-expression — one that partly filled the emotional void that had characterized my childhood.
You completed classical studies and earned a law degree before dedicating yourself to photography in the mid-1970s. Why the pivot?
I chose law because it was a four-year degree, so it was a practical decision rather than one driven by a particular vocation. Even so, I had always been creatively inclined.
At that time, a dear friend — an amateur photographer — introduced me to his darkroom. The experience sparked a unique fascination with the whole process, from handling photographic paper without ruining it to working in a room lit by a faint red light, something unfamiliar to most young photographers today.
I remember being struck watching images appear on sheets immersed in developing solution: it was in that exact moment that my love for photography was born. I made the decision to devote myself to it with passion and began to educate myself independently, studying art history, which provided the indispensable foundation for my artistic evolution.
Throughout my career I have always tried to stay true to a personal style that involves using every possible material, format, and genre, driven by the desire to explore how creativity can manifest itself in different circumstances. I started with color photography and then moved to black and white, reversing the traditional trajectory followed by many of my colleagues.
With color, I used innovative framing and highlighted abstract as well as metaphysical structures. With black and white, I sought to transcend the representation of reality, emphasizing forms and lines to stimulate dreams and imagination in the viewer. In other words, I deliberately heightened or removed specific elements of each mode in order to give my work expressive and poetic value.
You first emerged publicly through solo exhibitions in Naples, including one of your early shows at Centro Teatro Spazio Libero — a theater founded in 1972 by puppeteer Renato Barbieri at Parco Margherita in Naples. How did your first exhibition go? When did you begin exhibiting on a broader scale?
In 1977, I showed some of my photographs to Vittorio Lucariello, then director of Centro Teatro Spazio Libero in Naples, who immediately proposed that I mount an exhibition. Giuseppe Alario, director of Kodak for Southern Italy at the time, attended and subsequently introduced me to the Italian photography scene. I began publishing my work and exhibiting it more widely after that. A little while later, when I started attending the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie in Arles, France, I came into contact with gallerists and museum directors from around the world, launching my international career.
What did you first focus on?
At the beginning of my photography journey, I focused on color images using two main techniques: double exposure and sandwiching.
With double exposure, I would first photograph either sunsets or the moon using red filters, underexposing the image so that part of the film remained untouched. On the same shot, I would then superimpose structures or architectural elements that served both as a background and as a counterpoint to the circular forms of the natural elements. The final result, while still truthful, created a sense of disorientation through its metaphysical atmosphere.
With the sandwich technique, the creative choice came after the shot: I would overlay two already developed slides, selecting the most satisfying pairings. By rephotographing that composition, I obtained a single image resulting from the fusion of the two originals. These methods, although now superseded by digital tools such as Photoshop, still retain a strong visual impact.
What inspired you to experiment with different styles, and what did you discover about your own perception in the process? Where does your attention tend to focus, and why?
The variety of genres comes from the desire to constantly test myself — an ongoing challenge. But in all my images, poetry must be constrained by geometry; visual grammar gives meaning, making the image accessible and legible. Without meter there is neither form nor poetry, just as without a musical staff one cannot write a score.
In these early experiments, the emotional impact lies in the clash between living and inert matter: the sun and the moon opposed the straight, hard lines of walls; sinuosity confronted the schematic right angle. This contrast between real, material, and chromatic elements constitutes the core of the images, from which their evocative power derives.
Over the years, as I moved from color to black and white, I perhaps became a purist — one for whom a single shot fully exhausts the creative process.
Your work is known for strong formal control of framing, minimal expressive units, and a black-and-white visual language that often feels metaphysical rather than purely documentary. Why do you seek to capture the metaphysical?
The metaphysical and the surreal come from my need to dream, to inhabit a hyperuranian world. Fantasy, imagination, and mirage have always been part of me. From a young age I filled my "spaces" with other realities that in some way compensated for and filled the voids of isolation. Clearly, all of this is a reflection of what is inside me.
In much of your work, you tend to eliminate the incidental present and preserve what feels enduring. What fascinates you about creating an image that feels timeless? Are you trying to capture atemporality or a moment in time?
Through the lens, I seek to capture images that transcend time, blending the ancient and the modern into a single timeless whole. The cities I portray are not merely historical places or contemporary metropolises, but entities suspended in an eternal dimension, beyond fleeting fashions and the historical events that shaped them. The intention is to offer the viewer a vision that goes beyond mere representation, inviting them to perceive the city as a living and autonomous organism capable of telling infinite stories suspended between past and future.
Your photographs have entered public and private collections. Can you walk us through the Roma Nostra project?
The project is not only about my love for Rome — it's a visual journey through its wrinkles: the weight of historical events, architecture, spaces, and light, stripped of anything that would date them to a single moment.
Rome belongs to no time — and I further emphasized its total autonomy and suspension by portraying it completely deserted, imprisoned by long horizontal silhouettes, like the stage of a theater where the life enacted every day is only faintly visible and where silence reigns supreme. It is difficult to fully convey the idea of such a city — so absolutely full of everything, and therefore impossible to grasp in its innermost essence. I tried to reveal at least some of its secrets through an intuitive itinerary dictated only by what attracted me and pushed me towards a synthesis of reality, rationality, and creativity.
I believe Rome is the city of everyone; when you walk through its streets, despite the grandeur that inspires respect, you feel at ease. It is a "warm" city to which we all somehow belong — Rome is ours.
How do you feel about Roma Nostra decades later? How did the "Città di Roma" prize come about, and what did it mean to you?
Despite all the changes that have taken place since 1995, when I photographed it, the soul and essence of Rome have not shifted. If I were to photograph it today, I would take exactly the same shots. In 1995, TAV (High-Speed Train) asked me to produce a photographic book on Rome with the publisher Gangemi: Roma Nostra. The book had a preface by the director Lina Wertmüller and included contributions from illustrious Romans such as Alberto Sordi, Maurizio Costanzo, Paolo Portoghesi, Monica Vitti, Valentino the fashion designer, and others. The great composer Ennio Morricone also took part in the project. The book was presented with an exhibition at the Museo di Roma (Palazzo Braschi), and the following year, unexpectedly, the publisher called to say they wanted to give me the "Città di Roma" prize for the photographs published in the book, and that Ennio Morricone would receive it alongside me for his written contribution. That was an extraordinary recognition I will never forget, especially because I received it alongside Morricone — a giant of music — who told me: "You know, I immediately understood that you are also a musician. Your photographs have a musical compositional rhythm that belongs to those sensitive to the harmony of sounds." Perhaps that is the fondest memory of my career.
Your other works deal with memory and shadows, and each connects to time. Can you expand on why time is a guiding theme in your photography?
My interest is directed toward the permanence of emotions, the relationships between elements, and atmospheres that move through time without belonging to any specific date. Through this choice, photography is freed from the need to be read as a chronological document and becomes an open space for interpretation, where the viewer can enter without the filter of an immediately recognizable historical context. The absence of temporal indicators does not represent a denial of reality, but an attempt to make it more universal. Each image is conceived to retain its evocative power even years later, preserving the capacity to communicate with whoever looks at it, regardless of the period in which it is viewed. In this sense, photography becomes a suspended place in which the past, present, and future tend to overlap, allowing what is constant and shareable in human experience to emerge. My goal is to create images that can be observed today as well as tomorrow, without losing meaning, while maintaining their ability to provoke reflection, suggestion, and emotion.
Could you say a few words about Armageddon, a series that is inspired by the catastrophes of the world wars?
In Armageddon, my latest project, I do not seek to show war in the form of reportage — I do not photograph the battlefield, the event, or raw actuality. My approach is more metaphorical: I try to translate invisible scars, fears, silences, and the traces that conflicts leave behind. These photographs convey an atmosphere in which ruin, the spectral, collective memory, and diffuse anguish surface quietly. This leads to a photography that is more interior than descriptive. The viewer is not invited to identify a scene immediately, but to perceive a tension. Instead of saying "here is what happened," the images say "here is the trace that what happened has left behind." I seek to show the moment after — when the dust settles, the cries fall silent, but something remains and permeates the air.
You taught photography at the Montecitorio Club of the Italian Parliament for three years. How did that come about, and what was the experience like?
It is an experience I consider one of the most significant of my professional path. The appointment came from the Steering Committee after the publication of Roma Nostra, which the Club's members happened to see. From that reading came their interest in my work and vision of photography, which eventually led them to propose that I take charge of the photography courses. Receiving that invitation was both unexpected and deeply gratifying. I accepted without hesitation, driven by enthusiasm and a profound sense of responsibility.
I believe photography is not merely a technical discipline, but a language capable of telling the world, interpreting it, and preserving its memory. For that reason, I have always sought to transmit not only operational skills but also sensitivity, method, and observational ability. The greatest satisfaction, years later, is seeing many of my former students establish themselves professionally. Their words of thanks are the most authentic recognition.
You worked on album covers, advertising campaigns, and photography books. How did these projects differ from your personal work?
Every project is born from a personal vision and research process that requires freedom of choice in artistic and operational solutions. I cannot say that my work is objectively the best, but I can guarantee that it always represents the maximum of my abilities, experience, and professional commitment. For this reason, the client who chooses to work with me generally places trust in my method and my creative sensitivity, granting me the autonomy necessary to develop the project according to a direction that is shared in its goals but free in its expressive modes.
Working independently allows me to develop solutions more quickly, reducing the time spent on discussions and intermediary steps without compromising quality. This method also encourages greater project coherence and a clearer expression of creative vision — and brings concrete benefits to the client, with a high level of mutual satisfaction.
What are the most important lessons you have learned? What are you most proud of? Which project are you most fond of?
Every experience in my path has represented a fundamental piece of my growth, both human and professional. Through my work I have learned perseverance and consistency, which are essential to the success of any profession. The opportunities I seized, the challenges I faced, and the results I achieved helped build my professional identity, leaving a deep and lasting mark.
Among the most significant milestones, I remember with particular emotion the exhibition hosted by the Chamber of Deputies in the presence of Presidents Giorgio Napolitano and Carlo Azeglio Ciampi — a recognition of great institutional and personal value. On the professional side, one of the most important experiences was producing images for seven telephone cards for Telecom: three dedicated to Naples and four to certain European cities (Paris, Dublin, Berlin, and Brussels), distributed with a total print run of 19 million copies.
Looking back, I have no regrets — I would do every step exactly the same way, with the same passion, dedication, and conviction. As for what comes next, I prefer not to plan. I'd rather see what the future has in store.
Note* Images were provided by Augusto De Luca and used with permission.