Giovanna Griffo is an Italian fine art photographer and retoucher. She fell in love with photography when she was still six years old. As a professional, she loves sharing her knowledge to people who want to pursue photography. Learn more about her and her inspiring works in this interview.

Can you tell us a little about yourself and your background?

I am a professional fine art photographer and retoucher. I teach digital photography, digital post processing and retouching in countrywide workshops followed by both professionals and amateurs. I fell in love with photography since I was six years old girl and I used to spend my time inside my father's darkroom: that was the place I loved the most! Developing films and printing was a kind of magic and I have been dreaming about it even when I grew up. I have always lived surrounded by art and creativity, my parents are painters and sculptors and they taught me to love art and to express myself in a creative way.

How would you describe photography? How and why is it important to you?

Photography for me is a boundless expression of sensitivity and love for life. It is a desire to feel more, to get excited even in front of small things. Photography empower your senses: you can discover how much beauty is hidden inside those gestures on which no one cares for, you can feel the light touching you, and the way it transforms
objects around you; it lets you to be conscious that a moment is alive and real only in that precise moment in time you press the shutter, and after a second it no longer exists. I love photography, I do love it so much, it's my life.
You are asking me if photography is important to me. Do you consider breathing to be important? That's it. I love that feeling when something burns inside my head for days, because I have an idea that wants to come to life. I have to keep it in mind, till the end, I have to pamper it for a long time, I have to pay attention, I have to let her grow inside me first, and then, within a thousandth of a second maybe, bring her to life. Photography is different from all other forms of creative art. In all other forms, the process is slower, less impulsive, but in photography... it takes a fraction of a second to bring it to life, a very short time to originate an idea that just a moment before was only in your mind.
And so it happens, sometimes, that within the space of a single click, I give off tension, and pain, and joy; I feel more serene, relieved because now I can finally share it with someone. Nothing like a photograph is more concise and full of meanings that go straight from the head to the heart.