MY VISION

I am are architectural photographer. However, my training is as an architect. My gaze is divided between two distinct modes of constructing the world. Given that, I try to personify the metamorphosis of the field of photography that will lead to the practice of creating images that eventually identify, in part, with the field of architecture.

In order to understand a space, architects, possibly with a more conscious intentionality than mere users, walk about the buildings. They capture the spatiality of architecture by wandering, scrutinizing, and associating ideas, shapes, dimensions. It is through this movement that they discover the infinite variables of the architectural space, the singularities that distinguish a significant place from the myriad of insignificant constructions that invade our visual field. And they do it by blending what they see with the memories of other buildings they carry with them, often acquired through observation mediated by photography. Our architectural culture, given the impossibility of visiting all of the buildings in the world, is constructed mainly through the eyes of others. It is in this sense that we cast a generous eye upon the architecture we register. I strive not to issue a value judgment on the architectural content that is perceived, but rather an examination, at the emotional level, that seeks to homogenize all of the registers. Thus, what is cultivated is the absence of any critical moralism that might interfere with the image's final result and that seeks to position itself (architecturally) on a neutral plane, becoming useful in its own right. It is simultaneously a world in which better or worse architectures do not exist. The photographer, contrary to the photographer-artist, is summoned and responds through his knowledge as an expert. If he manipulates the image, that is, if any excess of "realism" is removed from it, he does it conscious of the fact that he works in a field of impartiality.

Marcel Mercetti