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Arts + Culture

On Our Radar: Renato D’Agostin

For our first ever photographer series, we checked in with up-and-comer Renato D'Agostin, who is traveling across the US on one epic motorcycle trip. Here he shares his favorite images from around the globe, plus why he'll always be a die-hard fan of black and white.

See recent posts by Saman Westberg

Brooklyn-based Italian photographer Renato D’Agostin doesn’t stay in one place for too long. Along with recent hops to Tokyo, London, Madrid, and Venice, the 32-year-old is already several weeks into his latest project: a two-month long cross country motorcycle road trip (on a (on a 1983 BMW R100, no less) shooting the vast and varied terrain of the American Landscape.

At 17, Renato set up a makeshift dark room in his mother’s Venice apartment, and he’s since been devoted to using film. There’s a sense of timelessness to his photos that we love—and he’s the master at capturing new and evocative angles of well known tourist landmarks. “I’m passionate about black and white," he says, "It creates a more natural connection with the viewer and that’s what makes an image more real. ”

Keep an eye out for his destination-themed collections: Metropolis, a series of images from four different cities, Tokyo Untitled, The Beautiful Cliché – Venezia, and a group of Nomadic Editions (Etna, Acrobats, and the forthcoming Kapdokya) Next up? LA and Istanbul – set for release this fall. This is one photographer you’ll want to keep your eye on.

Follow Renato’s motorcycle trip around the US at #whereisrenato and @renatodagostin

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Paris, 2002

"When I was 19, I took my first trip to Paris. I was in this amazing city where the greatest photographers of history have left their mark. I wandered around looking for that perfect ‘Parisian image’ to shoot and saw the Eiffel Tower. And then I turned around and saw it again reflected in a window frame."

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Kapadokya, Turkey, 2013

"This was my first flight in a hot air balloon. I didn’t realize how high up I was and then suddenly it was completely silent. I could actually hear my heartbeat as the sun rose. The clouds began to shift and become the perfect background for the other floating balloons."

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Venice, 2013

"Venice has been photographed in so many ways. When I shoot there, I have to offer a different vision. I composed the photograph so that the viewer would get a sense of how compressed the buildings are compared with the narrow streets. There was a family standing on top of the Rialto bridge overlooking the Grand Canal and the father kept waving his arm around pointing out the beauty. One time, two times, and the third time I clicked the shutter."

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Istanbul, 2013

"I was in Istanbul during the civil protests in 2013. The city was screaming Freedom and I was looking for an image that would resonate with that. As I approached the Bosphorus, I saw teenagers diving into the water to escape the summer heat. It was so carefree…a different sense of freedom. So I grabbed my camera."

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Shanghai, 2012

"In Shanghai, I was totally lost in the speed and energy of the streets and this moment of stillness come over me when I saw this temple . I walked in, shot it, and walked out. I didn't even know the name of the place."

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New York, 2015

"A friend of mine called one day and said “hurry up, there is something you have to shoot before it’s too late,” so I ran over. I asked permission to enter the demolition site and captured this image of the Statue of Liberty on a concrete slab just before it was torn down."

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Los Angeles, 2013

"On my way out from LA headed towards San Francisco, I stopped my car in Malibu and saw some surfers in the water, waiting for a wave. My goal is often to photograph what comes before the act, so I took the picture. It was all about patience."

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