Costanza Musto
Analog Photographer
Rome, Italy
In your photos you are often also in front of the camera, is it more difficult to photograph yourself or others?
This point is very subjective. Personally, I love both situations for a single issue: I take command, it's a feeling that I love to command myself and others according to the images and sensations I have in mind, that I feel and that I want to shoot.
If you hadn't chosen to be a photographer, what career would you have pursued that could have fulfilled you in the same way?
Maybe an actress.
You shoot a lot in film, something tangible, that remains, which deteriorates. What do you like about this means?
One thing I've always loved since I was a child is looking at old photos of my family and others, it was as if I was in those past moments, and they were always happy times. For me analog photography has this gift: launch people into a happy past.
Speaking of things "that remain", what relationship do you have with your works? You are one of those artists who would destroy everything made after the last shot, or would you keep everything?
I keep everithing for myself, my works are my children, they are my projections that I often don't want to show to anyone. Unfortunately in the end I am forced to do so.
There are a lot of film works, but your photos are sometimes very different from each other- in color and black and white, analog and digital, collage, multimaterials, nature, people, self-portraits- but in all of them there is a brand: a sense of nostalgia, of intimacy, of “domestic". Do you find yourself in these adjectives? How would you describe your works?
My photography is intimacy, its a moment never lived but imagined, it is a passing physical and mental state, it is erotic voyeurism, it is irony, it is a real and unreal contact. It is difficult to define my photography, just as it is difficult to define a person.
Another feature of your photography are the details. What makes them so fascinating to your eyes?
They are the most captivating and fun part of life, and above all they are endless. I can't stop myself from shooting them.
Always talking about the fixed points of your work, there doesn't seem to be a difference between the interior and exterior: there are pictures of your bedroom and bathroom, but also meadows, parks, beaches. How do you relate to the house and how do you relate to nature?
Houses can be a playground like the outside world. Being alone in a house and shooting for me is a sort of inside caress. During this year of pandemic I perceived nature as a dear friend to communicate with in silence, sometimes I disappear inside it.
Do you prefer the bedroom or the living room?
Bedroom. I do my favorite things in the world there: sleep, have sex, eat.
The kitchen or the bathroom?
Bathroom, it's nice to talk to the mirror.
The forest or the sea?
I would say sea but now I'm not so sure anymore.
Day or night?
Night. As vital and as a beautiful day is, during the night my brain works in a totally different manner, it has incredible adrenaline and creativity.
Where would you like to be now?
St. Petersburg, I was supposed to go there last year but unfortunately everything was blown up.
IG: @cosmu_photo