When people ask me about VEDO I almost always start from something that seems far away: portraits. I have photographed faces in black and white for many years, and at some point I noticed that what I did with people could also be done with companies. A company, looked at from close up, is not a brand and not a balance sheet. It is a group of people who every morning decide to keep something standing.
A logo says what is sold. A face says who makes it, and why in that way and not another. Whoever leads a company knows it, but rarely tells it: they prefer to talk about products, numbers, certifications, which are true things and also easier to show. The hands that started, the difficult choices, the evening when they almost gave up stay outside the photograph, and they are the part that most resembles the company.
VEDO was born from this idea, together with Andrea Masala. I am not interested in glossy communication, perfect and identical to all the others. An image that is too smooth convinces for a second, then is forgotten. I believe we remember what resembles reality, with its shadows too, and that a company can afford to be looked at like this, because its strength is there.
There is also a question of memory that matters to me. A company passes from one generation to the next, changes premises, machines, strategy, and almost always loses its faces. After a few decades nobody remembers what the founder looked like at thirty, or who stood beside them. Capturing those faces today, with care, means handing over to those who come after a story that would otherwise be lost.
That is why I like the work to end up in a printed book. An object you hold in your hands, that stays in an office and that someone will leaf through in twenty years, when social media will be a memory and many web pages will have left no trace. Paper has its own, slower time, and gives the people it portrays the dignity of staying.
When I photograph someone for VEDO I find again what I said about the portrait: the finished image also speaks about whoever looks at it. A client, an employee, a son taking his father’s place, in front of those faces recognise something of themselves and of the place where they work. It is a story that cannot be finished alone, and that is why it is worth beginning.
Giuseppe Irranca
