About me

Brief biography. Pippo Distefano was born in Bronte in the province of Catania, on the slopes of Mount Etna, in 1959, and works as a freelance engineer in the same province, specialising in the sector of Health and Safety in the workplace.
In 1976, on the occasion of the official opening of a school built by his father, the latter gave his son his first  analog camera, a Canon EF:  on the same day, motivated by this precious gift, Pippo began to take photos, with the official ceremony as the subject: this was just the beginning.
From that moment, in fact, his interest in photography began to grow, and over the following years became a real passion.
A Canon A1 followed his first camera, and then, with the advent of digital technology, other cameras obviously equipped with professional lenses.
In order to refine his skills, between 2007 and 2008, he attended  photographic courses organised by Canon Academy; a basic and an intermediate level course , both held in Catania, and as a completion of his skills training, an advanced level course held in Lucca.
Pippo’s passion for photography is revealed mainly in subjects regarding nature, landscapes, folklore  and in scenes of daily life both in small villages and big cities. Sicily, with its glorious history and characteristic vitality, obviously finds ample space in his photographic production.

Said about me:
“[…] Photography […]  even though using a technological instrument, manual or digital, more or less sophisticated, is able to give a voice to the vibrations of the soul, to the suggestions that bewitch the mind and enable it to look beyond what is visible to everyone. The artist does not simply look at reality surrounding him, but he sees it, relives it within himself, and transforms it into something other. This is to say that the artist sees shapes, colours, details and the totality of natural landscapes in a poetic form, estranged, original and personal, thus giving it artistic-creative uniqueness.
The photographs on exhibition here express all this. They are images that are exalted in the contrast of colours, the play on light and shadows, in the power play expressed in the lines that make up the captured image, in the unusual and original framing that only the trained eye of an artist can single out and immortalize as a fleeting moment of reality, to give it eternal life. They are glimpses of past and present Sicily that the flash brings back into the limelight of  history, and become a document in their most beautiful and evocative expression, letting themselves be admired  also by those people who are able only to look, and teaching them to see, to delight in the inherent beauty of all created things, succeeding in revealing the meaning of life […].”

Milly Bracciante, Art critic, on the occasion of the personal exhibition “Vestiges of Sicily”, 2012

Exhibitions
2015 – “Cimeli Agatini (“Mementos of Saint Agatha) popular art”: organised by the Association “ Saint Agatha in the Cathedral”, held at Saint Placido’s church in Catania, during the festivities in honour of  Saint Agatha, February 2015;
2012 –  Personal exhibition “Vestiges of Sicily” , Sant’Agata Li Battiati, province of  Catania.