‘I never know what I’ll find’: under the influence of Italy – in pictures

From extraordinary painters to empty chairs, Regina DeLuise’s evocative photobook The Hands of My Friends emphasises her connection to her motherland

Main image: Mermaid in Italy … Alison and Thee, St Lawrence River Photograph: Regina DeLuise

  • Patrizia, Rome, Italy 1981

    Regina DeLuise, an Italian American, has always felt a deep connection to Italy, her motherland. This connection, forged during her years of graduate study and numerous visits with her extended family, is reflected in the many images made in Italy featured in her new book. The Hands of My Friends by Regina DeLuise is published by Saint Lucy Books. All photographs: Regina DeLuise
    A pensive looking woman looks forward with leafy plants behind in a black and white image

  • Alison and Thee, St Lawrence River, 2002

    DeLuise’s photography reveals a profound love for the medium, embracing light, circumstance and the beauty and mystery of the quotidian. Her images embody the depth and richness of human perception, capturing the elegant and tender moments of contemporary life
    A black and white image shows a child sleeping on top of her dozing mother by the sea.

  • Rita in Ski Hat, East Northport, NY, 1980

    Regina DeLuise: ‘The Hands of My Friends was made the year following my mother’s passing. She is a tremendous influence of goodness in my life and left a legacy of love in her wake. There are three images in the book representing Rita Vitale DeLuise. Here, she is 12 years younger than I am now. To say this book represents my life is not hyperbolic’
    A woman looks away from the camera in a ski hat in a black and white image.

  • Diana’s Grotto, Villa d’Este, Tivoli, Italy 1994

    ‘As in portraiture, I discovered that the essence and character of the land and the intimate connection to what is in front of my lens are of paramount importance. I’ve often referred to Italy as my creative home. It has been an abiding thread that weaves through my life and through the images I selected for the book’
    A black and white photo showing a share surrounded by a grand Italian interior

  • Felicia, Hands on Wall, Florence, Italy, 1983

    Felicia McCarren contributes an essay in the book called The Camera Does Not Frame Me. She writes: ‘Even when it is me in the image, it makes me ask: “are those arms stretched across a wall mine?” In the photo, they have become other but, like a phantom limb, I feel them. I check my spots (they too have changed) to see if they might be mine’
    Arms against a white background, black and white

  • Felicia on Loggia, Villa Schifanoia, Florence, Italy 1983

    Felicia McCarren: ‘The photographer, taking the photograph, enters into the history of art. Standing on that loggia on one leg for some time before, and as the shutter clicks, the subject enters into the history of art. A history of figuration, the representation of women’
    A woman stands on one leg and looks away from the camera in a black and white image

  • Isa Petrozani, Florence, Italy, 1984

    Regina DeLuise: ‘On a hillside outside Florence, Isa Petrozanni entered my studio for critique. Cigarette in hand, she gravitated toward one of the more pointless photographs I’d made, and must have sensed my unease: “Ahh! Yes, Dante said. ‘All you need are two trees to create a sublime landscape.’” With her simple observation, Petrozzani, niece of the composer Maurice Ravel and extraordinary painter, allowed me to see this sublime landscape, not as a pictorial trope, but as a worthy contemporary subject, alive, and full of stories’
    A woman poses for the camera in sweater, skirt, scarf and sunglasses, while smoking a cigarette in a black and white image.

  • Ann, Purchase, NY, 1980

    ‘In pursuing a portrait, the pause in time creates an opportunity for the sitter to gradually drop their self-consciousness. It allows me the space to move towards sparks of recognition and inquisitiveness, deepening a feeling of friendship or deep love. The sitter watches me dance about, managing this hulking camera – pick it up, move it here, there and back again – all the while in conversation, or directing from under the dark cloth’
    A slightly worries looking woman with cropped hair and wearing a vest looks away from the camera.

  • Shoulder, Purchase, NY 1980

    ‘I’ve been told by some, that being observed in this way allows for a heightened curiosity on their side of the lens. Others want to come around and see what I’m seeing. As I instruct them to get close to the camera and cover their head and shoulders with the dark cloth I urge them to look past the ground glass, not at it. I walk in front of the camera and move my body, sweep my hands near the lens, interrupting the light so they can orient themselves and decipher the field of view’
    A close up detail of a woman’s necklace and vest-clad torso in black and white.

  • Smoke in Olive Grove, Bogliasco, Italy, 2017

    DeLuise works with a large-format 8x10 camera and the Platinum/Palladium printing process. Her luminous imagery explores the visual complexities and everyday poetry of contemporary experience through portraiture, landscape and still life.
    A smokey olive grove in black and white

  • Antoinette, in Kitchen, Spinoso, Italy, 2017

    ‘The 8x10 keeps the mystery in the action of making pictures. It is physical and also protects the photographer. It allows for my anonymity. It is my veil, a disappearing act, where space is made for a kind of alchemy. The whole process is its own kind of poetry. An 8x10 view camera invariably calls attention to the photographer. It is an impressive and intriguing object, and the curiosity of gatekeepers often allows me to move into spaces where a conventional camera would be turned away’
    Circular patterns of the sun through a blind hit the back of a woman sitting in a chair in a black and white image.

  • Balancing Plant, Cortona, Italy, 2001

    ‘I am at my most productive when I keep something of an unsteady ground underfoot. I never know what I’ll find when I’m out in the world, and I’m drawn to that not knowing. The air feels different, communication is awkward, and a new quality of light, illuminating the unexpected, is a wonder. Honing my visual acumen is a way to find balance, keep alert, agile and alive’
    A black and white image of a pot plant balancing on the side of an old sink.

  • Self Portrait in the Desert, Chigaga, Morocco, 2023

    Felicia McCarren: ‘The photographer casts her shadow on the image. Where is the photographer in this, my life? She is everywhere. In every photograph, even the ones where we do not see her. She is imprinting herself in every print she makes. She does not follow me, from Fiesole where we met; she leads me up the mountain, up the stairway. Through the world, she takes her camera. And while making work, finding extraordinary frames, guiding subjects, estimating landscapes, the photographer is opening the lens of possibility’
    A figure distant and framed between two tents in the desert, black and white image.
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