_______________________________________________________________

dominic arizona bonuccelli photography + design

http://www.azfoto.com     509.995.5550     az@azfoto.com

                      coming next to the web gallery -

                      CUBA -  PAMPLONA:   the running of the bulls – TIBET

Artist’s Statement

Many years ago I was accepted into the USC School of Cinema/Television on the border of Watts and lovely downtown Los Angeles. I was floating on air - not just because I’d lived my whole life in Spokane, Washington, and was hankering to explore, but also because I was sure I was going to be a popular film director and love the process. Turns out I didn’t love the process. In fact I hated it.

But what I didn’t hate, indeed what inspired and challenged and excited me the most, was the prolonged roadtrips I’d take every summer between Spokane and L.A. - and the 10 rolls of film I’d shoot along the way. Always a different route and always a new adventure filled my 6-day return or departure with mysterious energy. Washington to California via Colorado. California to Washington via New Mexico. Crescent moon-shaped peregrinations navigated on the fly. And to survive the remainder of the year I’d cash in frequent sojourns to Joshua Tree and Death Valley to sustain my wanderlust and my need to capture my escapades on film.

It’s a quest. Understand? It’s a quest for I don’t know what till I get there. But I usually find it. And it’s never quite what I envision. And it’s usually better. Lightning storms in the saguaro southwest. Young girls catching and eating raw fish in a Polynesian paradise. Carnival revellers doused in housepaint running through the alleys of Belize. Drunk Australians pinballing off 1-ton bulls on the streets of Pamplona.

So now I live nowhere - literally - and I shoot freelance. I have the best job in the world. Honestly. I shoot corporate, editorial, photojournalism, commercial, stock, travel. I have a hard time focusing (myself, not the camera). In the last few years I’ve covered SouthEast Asia, Australia, Europe, Central America, Oceania and beyond.

But the reason I have the best job is because it’s still fun. It’s still challenging and it’s still exciting. I could be weaving thongs (for people’s feet, mind you), and if it was perennially satisfying, I’d do it till it wasn’t.

Many photographers advise that it’s best to develop a definitive style and maintain it - I disagree. There are too many things I want to try, too many aspects of my personality to manifest, too many experiments of which to partake. I happily forsake consistency for spontaneity.

In my pictures I generally gravitate toward energy, beauty, power, truth. But such things manifest not in obvious ways - overtly and subtly. The truth (or deception) of a mirror or a sunrise (although I don’t often see the latter - unless I’ve happily weathered the whole night...). The power of a lightning storm or a gesture. The nobility of a peasant. The energy of stillness or sleddogs. The beauty of a wrinkled face or a laughing kid.

So here it is. Enjoy the pics and then change your reality. Clear some time, pick a destination, or intentionally don't, but take a ridiculous route to get there. Don’t take a map. Or if you do, don’t take any 4-lane freeways. Take a dirt road. Take a yak-trail. You’ll be OK. Always follow omens and auspicious birds. Hawk feathers are a sign you're on the right track. Be aware of the signs, roadsigns and otherwise. It’s a quest, understand? Getting there is the best part.