Camilla Ferrari

"The aim of my work is to convey a space of silence," says visual artist Camilla Ferrari. In a world where visuals are so often designed to shout, Camilla's pieces stand out by doing the opposite. "I like my work to create an atmospheric place, so that when someone looks at my work, it is not so much about what happens in the picture, but more about the space it conveys around you. My perfect idea would be for someone to look at my work because they needed peace, and to find calm."

Based in Milan, Italy, and known for her signature diptychs pairing stills and vertical video, Camilla's work revolves around overlooked subjects, including the poetry of day-to-day life and the relationships between people and their environments. "The smaller things of everyday life, the importance of small gestures, the relationship between what is real and what is not real," she explains. "Playing with this idea of photography as a medium, as an entrance to that world of perception, which is very subjective."

From 2017 she discovered video thanks to Instagram's introduction of Stories. "I was fascinated by them," she says. "But at the same time, I didn't know what to do with them besides sharing my personal life, which I wasn't comfortable with." She started thinking about vertical videos as "images that move, rather than clips in themselves", an outlook which continues to this day. She now shoots on a Canon EOS R5, its in-body image stabilisation helping her shoot video handheld, often with her favourite Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM lens.

Camilla's work has taken her across the world, from Khartoum to Beijing, and she has been published in National Geographic, The New York Times, NPR, US News, 6Mois and la Repubblica, among others.

Camilla interrogates the relationships between people and the places they live, as seen in her exploration of the dwindling community of the tiny Italian town of Civita di Bagnoregio, or more emotional connections, such as in Beijing, where she shot her Aquarium project exploring how a panic attack affects the way we perceive places. This city would prove to be a turning point, as it was on her second visit that she first started using film. "Where images were very precise, video was the opposite, with a more meditative approach," she says. "I started to see how differently the two mediums could communicate the same place."

If you had to boil down what really drives Camilla, she says it would be questioning reality. "Is reality what we really see, or do we see it because we create our reality?"

What is it about diptychs that you like, in particular pairing still images with video?

"It's become more and more a part of my work. I like the fact that the image and the video talk with each other. They can complement each other, or sometimes just give a different experience. Where the images are more silent, the videos can give more depth and more information, and when the opposite happens, the videos are like having music while you work. It gives you the concentration, the metronome."

How is your lens choice related to your working style?

"I like the idea of having a zoom. Having different prime lenses would mean having a narrower field of action for how I work. I'm a very routine kind of person so if I find a lens that I'm comfortable with, then it's very hard for me to let go because my brain is also wired with that combination. Changing lenses for me is really like moving house. The way I work, I know that changing lanes distracts me a lot, so that's why zooms are so important to me."

You started shooting vertical video because of Instagram but now it's a central part of your work. Why have you maintained this framing?

"I really like the intimacy of the vertical format. When you go to the movies, it's a collective experience by definition. The 16:9 format is a collective format, in my view, whereas the 9:16 format is personal and one-on-one. Because if you're looking at a vertical video, it means that most likely, you're watching it on your phone. And if you're watching it on your phone, you're usually alone. You're in bed, or you're in the bathroom, or you feel awkward at a dinner and decide to look at your phone – so it's a very personal moment. I really like the idea of my work being seen in those moments."

You hope to create a sense of calm in your work. Is there a part of this which is also about finding calm yourself?

"I'm a very analytical person, I'm an overthinker. For me, the photographic process is a justification for stillness, in a way, because I'm not doing nothing. I'm creating, but in a space of nothing. The situations where I work best are when I don't have an objective but I have a space. If I have an area of action and I don't know exactly what I'm looking for but I know it's there, that's where I have the most satisfactory experience, because it's about exploration. It's about curiosity, and it's also about being young and having a childlike curiosity. That's something that I really hope I can keep throughout my whole life."

"Limitations help the eye. If you have constraints, you have to work around them if you want to do something different. The limitations that Instagram had with vertical video were actually super helpful to me because they made me question what I really want to do. Is this limiting or is this a possibility? I think it's the same thing with gear. If I know that I only have that, that is what I'm working with. If I have too much freedom, then I get lost."

Instagram: @camillaferrariphoto

Website: www.camillaferrari.it/