Sante D'Orazio: Barely Private

Ten years after his much-celebrated A Private View, photographer Sante d Orazio is back with a second volume of his illustrated diary-cum-scrapbook, covering the period from 1997 to 2008. Totally uncensored and deliciously risque, d Orazio s collage-style diary entries one day per page, with extra photos added in-between are packed with photos of celebrities, models, musicians, actors, and artists in all states of dress and undress, surrounded with candid and intimate handwritten observations. In many cases d Orazio juxtaposes outtakes with famous images published in magazines such as Playboy and Interview. All-night parties and intense photo sessions are just the daily grinds of d Orazio s jet-setting life, which he openly shares with readers wishing to take a peek behind closed doors where the glitterati let loose. Black and white alternates with color, candid with posed, painting a dynamic tableau of moods and styles and revealing d Orazio as a photographer with a keen eye for stimulating portraiture. It is rare to have such unlimited access to the circles in which d Orazio moves, and even rarer to have an uncanny ability to capture it so perfectly in words and pictures.