Two years of work which have been filled with more than twenty different MMA events. A way to expose the public to this discipline not only from sports’ point of view. It isn’t just a fight, there are other aspects which spectators wouldn’t know about.
I have followed the athletes’ training. I have stalked them to the changing rooms before their match. I have portrayed their ways of preparing, focusing, praying and empowering themselves, followed them to the cage and back, far away from the limelight. The joy of the winners, the grief and tears of the defeated, the first aid support.
A fighting sport, as extreme as fascinating that deserved to be deeply explored and portrayed as never done before.
Q&A with Andrea Roversi
Photography is…
Photography, for me, is a way to reinterpret the reality, omitting the idea of truth and of documentation, to make room for a more intimate, personal and authorial view.
My main goal is to tell a story through images, observing in depth what surrounds me, putting a picture after the other as if they were words, leaving in the viewer the opportunity not only to learn, but also to imagine.
Photography and writing…
I think that photography is like a script. There are those who write in prose, some in poetry, those who follow the rules and those who break them. Some people can make us dream, catching us with a written, some other with a photograph.
I think that photography and writing are two different languages but with a common goal.
What joins them is the will of the author to say something.
Personally, if I had nothing to say I wouldn’t ever take a picture. I think it’s the same for the writer.
Who left the biggest impression on you?
For what concerns the photography, all the people who helped me to take the first steps, who urged me to give more, and who were sincere and made me grow.
In particular I would like to quote Scott Typaldos that in addition to being an excellent photographer is also an excellent person.
He was the first who gave me a different view of photography as I had always lived it.
Besides him, I have a lot of gratitude towards Massimo Mastrorillo, my teacher at the Scuola Romana di Fotografia.
Tell us a little about yourself
Currently working as a freelance photographer, I collaborate with the photo agency “EchoAgency”. Right now I’m working on two long-term projects; one on the MMA (mixed martial arts) and one on Iceland, that will take me soon to move for some months on a farm in the north of the island.
