Featured Photographer
Helmut Pilo
Helmut Pilo was born and grew up in Cassino, in central Italy. A trip to Iceland in 2016 sparked his passion for landscape photography and he began to devote his free time to it.
From the great landscapes of Iceland, Norway and Lapland, to the Dolomites, the Abruzzo forests and the Tuscan hills of his homeland Italy, what increasingly attracted him was the spectacle of nature itself. With time an ever more intimate relationship has developed and his attention has been drawn more to the smaller details.
Michéla Griffith
In 2012 I paused by my local river and everything changed. I’ve moved away from what many expect photographs to be: my images deconstruct the literal and reimagine the subjective, reflecting the curiosity that water has inspired in my practice. Water has been my conduit: it has sharpened my vision, given me permission to experiment and continues to introduce me to new ways of seeing.
If you look at Helmut Pilo’s Instagram profile, you won’t immediately think of Iceland, but he credits that place and its wild nature with sparking his passion for photography. It must have been frustrating to have begun to explore the grand landscapes of the North only to have travel restricted by the pandemic, yet 2021 turns out to have had a silver lining and gave him the opportunity to spend more time on his photography, and to immerse himself in the smaller details of nature closer to home. As Helmut gets ready to launch a website, we asked him to tell us more about his photographic journey.
Would you like to start by telling readers a little about yourself – where you grew up, and what your early interests were?
Despite what you might think when reading my name, I was born and grew up in Cassino, a small town situated in central Italy.
When I was a boy, I was passionate about design, music and fashion. My interest in photography started later, thanks to my first trip to Iceland in 2016.