HA NOI

Nga is running a nice clothes design shop in Old Town Hanoi. She is the designer, the owner, the business oriented, contemporary woman that incarnates the modern Vietnam. The first thing she says is "I don't design for the masses!".. Odd enough in a socialist country with communist flags on every public building.
But this is only the most obvious contradiction in this continent. Philosophy and ideology are flexed in ways that to us, the westerners, seems at odd with everything. Probably this is the main reason for the vitality in this part of the world: no fixed rules, logos, labels mean free mind and endless opportunities...
I love Hanoi: classic and contemporary lives side by side on every street, always with elegance and equilibrium. The true capital city, far more charming then the contradictory Saigon. And beauty is a constant presence, something that is helping a lot..

THIS AGE: HAVE TO THINK, HAVE TO THANK..

I just turned 52. The same age when Frank Zappa left this universe to move somewhere else. Besides the mustache logo, he left much more inside of me. The freedom of thinking, expressing myself, living without fixed schemes, and talking straight. He had the genius that I miss, but was good enough to share it, and defend it from the common, the mediocre, the cleric.

PHU QUOC: GOING, GOING... GONE?

Very few people know where Phu Quoc is, right? Very few think of this Vietnamese island as an holiday destination, a backpacker retreat, an alternative to Phuket or Bali. Very, very, few.. Or many too many? PQ is a classic story that mirrors the dangerous, yet interesting Asian trend. Things are unknown and backward until a moment ago, then they start running like hell and in a second they find themselves crashed into the wall of mass-global-anonymous world.
PQ is still border-line. Because Vietnam is not Thailand, connections are slower, tourists are fewer, options are less... Yet the island, still a place to discover, is half attacked by developement projects (165 in 50 km!!??!!) and concrete condos.. The other half is still natural, worth visiting: now, right now!
The Far-East is acquiring this (terrible) Chinese attitude to grow fast without caring for nature and history. Old buildings are razed and replaced by condos, skycrapers or, at best (best?) by fake reconstructions destined to attract mass-tourism. I hate when our historic cities are transformed in living museums (Florence, my city) where to move a stone is a sin. But this is the opposite extreme. Humanity seems to have lost the soft touch for the good old half-ways..

SCHIZOPHRENIC

If you see my previous posting and you see this image of Kuala Lumpur you can easily understand why I feel schizophrenic.. One week before I was shooting in hell on earth, with people starving and suffering (really suffering) all around me, and now.. here I was.. Lights, glamour, overfed crowds shopping, five stars hotels and malls. Yes, I know very well that the world is like this, but adjusting in this bit of time is not that easy!
This brings me back to my thoughts on how air travel has made everything too short, too easy. How my flight from Rome to Bangkok takes me here in 10 hours, how nice, but also how I skip Turkey, Iran. Pakistan, India, Burma, therefore missing the sense of distance and travel. Therefore skipping the passage of cultures that explay why here is so different. But, as I keep saying, the global world is making this a souvenir of my early trips..
But, back to KL.. the incredible thing is that this is Islamic, is no far from Bangladesh, but is just another world.. If you think that the Rohingyas refugees dream is to get here because they can send 100$ PER YEAR back to the camp..

ROHINGYAS HELL

Rohingyas are a Muslim minority stranded and persecuted in Myanmar by the army junta, and certainly not loved by the majority Buddhist population. So they have escaped for 30 years to neighboring Bangladesh, counting on faith solidarity in spite of the country poor conditions.
But most of them are not accommodated in the two UNHCR camps and find themselves in makeshift camps where life is as hard as possible.
This man, reduced to skin and bones, had gone searching for firewood, an illegal activity, and had fallen breaking a leg. We found him like this, with an infection giving him a high fever, with no possible cure at all. All his wife could do for him was washing is body to offer some relief. I wonder if he is still alive after few days..
No wonder most of these people try to escape by see toward Malaysia: an impossible trip, still better than starving and see your family die in here.

THE SHIP BREAKING YARD

In Chittagong the ship breakers work goes on. After the great images of Sabastiao Salgado gave relative fame to these poor workers, nothing is changed. Hundreds of gigantic, rusting ships lay in the sands, cover the horizon, await to be demolished piece by piece. And thousands of workers do the job, walking in a mud full of oil and chemicals.. I went in shooting, after some difficulties, and went on for an hour.. before a severe manager realized I was there, and told me to show off. They resent the press criticism on the working conditions: I wonder why...

OH YES, DHAKA IS CHAOS...

Dhaka is a mess! It really is! Wild, crowded, noisy.. the traffic is the worst I've seen, with thousands of rickshaw mixed to the cars in an incredible confusion.. In other words it is a photographer's paradise as much as it's the inhabitants hell. Then you get to the river, at sunset, and the traffic moves on the water... After all this is a gigantic delta..

PISTORIO FOUNDATION: A NEW SCHOOL...

Me and Massimo had the privilege, a few days ago, to participate the inauguration of yet another school financed by the Pistorio Foundation. Pasquale Pistorio, here shown between a group of fellow Sicilians (I guess), is supporting mostly the education in disadvantaged countries, rightly asserting, I think, that schooling is the essential way out of many difficult social environments. We had the occasion to talk and listen of his long life and work experiences, and his preoccupation that the economic crisis we are entering may produce an even greater, and badly dangerous social divide. Something all of us should worry about..

MYANMAR IN FOTOlogie...

Italian news.. Sul sito di FOTOlogie, al link http://www.fotologie.it/pistolesi.html potrete adesso trovare la galleria di immagini dedicate alla situazione in Birmania/Myanmar.
Colgo l'occasione per ringraziare gli amici di FOTOlogie per la vetrina offertami e sottolineare il bel lavoro che stanno facendo per valutare il nostro lavoro!

CREEPING IN THE SOUL..

Chiang Mai is a city really difficult to define today.. Modern, yet with spots of religious tradition. Crowded with Thai and international tourists, but with many local faces strolling in the streets. And thousands of kids going to school. Or visitors having their Sunday dinner in the courtyards of the Buddhist temples, while loudspeakers transmit the evening prayers. Is this the coming reality of the world? Modern, tech, cosmopolitan and yet molten in an ancient soul?
Take as symbol the glasses on the nose of this Monk sacred effigy.. Probably my limit, but I had never seen this before: modernity is creeping into the soul?

BLADE RUNNER'S STREETS

As I walk through the streets of this city that I know well enough to find my way, I keep thinking at my Blade Runner project. From several years I'm planning to find those scenes that in many World's metropolis resemble so much the movie forecasts. As George Orwell's 1984 has become a reality perfectly on time, so the Ridley Scott's images have become almost actual to our life. At least in certain parts of the Earth. Old street-food vendors below modern skyscrapers, crumbling buildings lodging the outcasts, cars, well, not flying, just yet... I think is time to start working on this project seriously... This can be the starting concept for that Global New World that will be the logic sequence to NAG (Not Yet Global), the collection of images with wich I have saluted the finishing time of cultural differences.

ESOTIC BANGKOK

Just Arrived in Bangkok that will be the base for the next three months in South East Asia. With Massimo Morello we are planning to shoot stories in Bangladesh, Vietnam and Philippines as well as in Thailand. So we'll be staying in this residence, a home away from home, with this beautiful view on Saphan Taksim. Looking outside my window I remembered the accusation I received during my presentation at Fotografica 2007 from a guy that thought I have an "esotic" eye for things and situations I photograph. I should have answered that esotism is most of the times in the eyes of whom's looking rather then in those of the photographer, but I love idealism too much to be hard against it. And here I am, looking at what has become of this oriental city that I first sow in 1978, my first impact with Asia, from which I remember the noise (still increased, as you can well imagine) and the unknown odors, transformed in the well known smog, and I wonder how can I pull something esotic out of it.
It's time of thinking, brainstorming, searching and evolving for me, and I think this urban, blade-runner-like situation, is really what I need today. New stories and new language, this is the challenge I give myself. With a profound doubt: for whom to publish, therefore for whom to see..

NEW CONCEPT FOR PISTOLESI.COM WEBSITE

We just renewed the concept for the http://www.Pistolesi.com website, the showcase version of the web presentations. Rather then showing the whole of my production this is a flash based presentation of portfolios, recent stories, projects. There are still some minor problems in the layout, and any feedback will be appreciated.

NEW STORIES IN THE WEB SITE..

The website http://www.pistolesiphoto.com is now including some of the recent stories on Philippines..

THE 2009 CALENDAR IS READY

The 2009 calendar, titled "East, East, East, Almost West", a gallery of recent images from that part of the world, is ready and we are shipping in these days. We printed 600 copies, of which around 100 are not reserved. Normally we ask for the new requests to cover the cost of shipment. We don't send more then one copy for each request. Mail us if you wish to receive it.