Casting by Mattia Baldi

Mattia Baldi is impressed by how the human perception of beauty is changing. Modern technologies are going to make us see things that don't exist, augmented reality, our faces will be perceived as we want.

A Hollywood star, a friend we love, a teacher we like. How we look, the natural impression that our biological self gives to others will be gradually less important in the next future. Mattia Baldi always likes a kind of photography that designs an idea, a composition of shadows using real-life elements. If photography is based on something that is not the reality is not photography but something else.

After his bachelor's degree in Painting from the Academy of FineArts in Rome and a Master in studio photography Mattia decided to move to Asia when he was 23 years old. Since then have been involved with major advertising agencies, corporations, and institutions as a photographer and media expert. Today Mattia Baldi is based in Bangkok, Thailand.

Mattia Baldi guess that is a good sign, people still want to have a memory of what they look like, or they are happy to see themselves in a more honest way. The vibe of his work is not celebratory, doesn't tend to extra-valorize the subjects, and wants to be raw content of reality.

"Especially here where I'm living, Bangkok, the beauty standards are a complicated matter." Thai people pass more time on SM than anyone else and the young generations are growing up with virtual digital standards of beauty. "It will be amazing to realize one book per city all around the world to check the status of a wide spectrum of humanity. People who are working in the system or that are trying but fail for some aesthetic reason all around the world."

Mattia Baldi’s first book is all about Bangkok and the models, actresses, and dancers professionals, and beginners that are living and working in Bangkok now.

"This project is an all black and white photography book about women. Actresses, models, dancers, portrayed without asking to be anything else than themself at ease. I wanted to represent their personality under natural sunlight; I didn't want any fashion poses. I wanted them to feel they don't need to look like a standard. For years I tried to shoot the model as she looks when she walks into the studio, her natural self, before the makeup and clothes. I never wanted to shoot a standard imposed by someone, and I see the struggle of trying to conform to an idea. That struggle kills the beauty of the person entirely. We live in a world where people are trying as hard as they can to look like something deprived by poetry and soul. Instagram beauty filters, the unreal Photoshop skin retouching, are today the same base standards of Social Media aesthetics. These impossible beauty standards change contemporary society's view, especially for the women who are often chasing an unattainable digital image. The shots of this book project don't have any digital retouch or alteration. The objective is to show a more sincere view of female beauty and a person's character over how she needs to look to be accepted. The Art's tone is not celebratory nor tends to enhance anything other than the model's personalities. Here in Thailand, where I've shot the whole project, the beauty standard's perception is dictated by Social Media. Thai youngsters spend more time on Social Media than anyone in the World, and digital images strongly influence their perception of beauty."

Mattia Baldi: CASTING | A book about women - Published by Seipersei, Siena, Italy
Edition: 300 copies
Dimensions: 24x32cm
Cover: Fedrigoni Materica Verdigris 360gr
Binding: Swiss style, with open spine; back protected with canvas.
Inside: 96 pages on Garda Patt Klassica 150gr printed Duotone with protective varnish layer.
Prefaces by 3 astonishing women: Benedetta Barzini, Benedetta Frucci, Nadine Barth

"Working with models’ agencies for my commercial work and doing castings have always intrigued me beyond being just a job, but I have also been blindly unaware of the reason for that until recently I found out why. Growing up collecting Interview Magazine, the magazine founded by the American artist Andy Warhol in 1969, I sharpened my artistic sensibility by learning from the magazine's interviews, Warhol's screen tests, and all of his work concerning castings. It was a perfect way to explore and understand the human condition and show the side of the people of which I find interesting. Instagram, influencers, and "everyone will be famous for 15 minutes" were all predicted by Warhol. Overflow of images, a spillover of information and intrusive consumerism that were once just bad omens are today our reality." 

A year after his Master in photography Mattia decided to move to Asia. His first location was Beijing. Mattia's interest in Asia was based on his immense curiosity toward Taoism, Eastern religions and traditional Chinese beliefs. Living in Beijing across the Olympic games was an incredible experience, Mattia used to walk around the city with his large-format camera getting interested in the reality that was reinventing itself under his eyes. Later on, this work became a book published independently. Working as a photographer as well as studying ancient Chinese culture Mattia spent more than 6 years in Beijing.

Mattia in Beijing has cooperated and worked for major clients like RDM, Times Art Museum, Microsoft, Facebook; was photography and media professor for the Beijing Capital Normal University. With the international experience gained in 2013, Mattia came back to his country and worked in Italy as a digital content photo editor for ENI. Winning the same year's best corporate website in Europe and in the World Mattia was asked to move to Bangkok, Thailand to work for WPP on the client Ford. For several years Mattia was In-house Photographer for WPP Advertising Agencies (GTB-Prism-JWT) shooting many successful advertising campaigns both as a photo-editor and as lead photographer. From 2015 to 2018 Mattia has worked for ASEAN markets as well as the Chinese market from the WPP (GTB) office in Shanghai. In 2019 Mattia started his own photography studio business working in Singapore, Shanghai, and Bangkok where he’s currently based.

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