Ettore Moni- An Emtpy Valley

Ettore Moni is a Parma, Italy based photographer. He documents contemporary visions of urban landscapes and personal projects with a large-format camera using both 4x5 and 8x10.

His work, of a documentary nature explores stories and narratives within the landscape. Moni presented his work to Untitled Collective last year and was featured in Issue #4 of Untitled Collective. We got in contact with him recently to find out more about his practice.

What draws you to shoot with large format?

Shooting with large format was a choice that came to me with time, with the arrival of the digital I found myself at a crossroads, so when my short career as a fashion photographer in New York City stopped, I decided to abandon photography of that kind and I chose to stay in the film world.

I decided to only investigate the things that interested me and not to compromise with that of which the newspapers were asking for unless it coincided with my work.

Switching to large format was almost a natural process, this way of photographing makes me more rational and every photograph that I shoot is exactly what I see, it's like having classical music while working, you enter a very special world, by making photographs with large format you will know what I mean.

Your series An Empty Valley is incredibly poetic, does the series resonate with a deeper meaning?

The meaning of the project is nothing personally special, if not to make known a community that even here in Italy is not very well known and that I want people to know and explore. I like to discover new realities, as well as people who can teach you something. I always fall in love with the projects that I work on.

What inspired you to create the series An Empty Valley?

I can only say that I have been collecting photography books for many years and I believe that all the photographers whose work I admire each inspire me in some way, but at the time of shooting it is always my eye that leads me to make the final cut for each photograph.