Fashionclick   Photographer Interview

Sante D'Orazio's

It is quarter to three in the afternoon when I arrive at the Serge Sorokko Gallery in New York’s Soho to interview Sante D’Orazio. Autumn’s sunlight on West Broadway just off Prince Street slants shining on the opposite side of the road. I had met him two nights before during the inaugural  reception of the exhibition that accompanies the release of his book, 'A Private View.'

Sante, a painter/photographer with a sixteen-year career in fashion and celebrity photography, has just launched his book a week and-a-half before, and - he tells me - it has already sold out in Germany.

The book, a diary-like collection of Sante’s experiences, includes photographs of famous models, personalities and artists. His images are a behind-the-scenes look at the glamour-filled world this much-traveled man - born the son of an immigrant barber - now moves in. The pictures, many times  part of collages, range from regular snapshots and spontaneous fun shots to overtly sexy pictures of subjects who seem to have been captured in the midst of a sensual connection with D’Orazio's camera. A Private View also includes paintings by his friend Francesco Clemente - who signs the foreword - and of Sante himself. As a photographer myself I wonder if I will be able to capture a true ‘private view’ of this very successful colleague’s spirit.

Sante D'Orazio

How did you start in fashion photography?

I got into photography because this man who lived around the corner taught me, so I never went to school for it.  I had painted most of my life and I was studying fine arts. When I graduated from university I needed   

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