Angelo Doto was born on the 23^rd August 1948 in Castelcivita, in the region of Salerno. He comes from a family of farmers and he lived in a  farmhouse with his parents and grandparents until the age of 15. He was enthralled by the rural environment  which surrounded him; but  more than the landscape was deeply attached to and inspired by the people; their expression reflected the land and the land reflected them, changed them and sustained them.

The young Angelo loved entering houses to photograph the most simple scenes; in his opinion, everyday life possesses something mysterious  but also reassuring; it represented the humble bond with tradition. The “photographer” of Castelcivita was the person who tought him the first technical notions of photography. Angelo considered him a sort of magician, a gealous keeper of a secret wisdom to which he would never have access. But this was not so. The photographer was kind and well-disposed towards Angelo who learnt a great deal from him.

He encouraged his passion, as did his family, who presented him with the much covetted “Comet II” which he had seen at a village fair. He recalls many photographs, like the one of the line of women with their water  jugs on their heads slowly crossing the square as they returned from the fountain; photographs which testified the mysterious and the customary of a way of life that was gradually being lost, but which within him remained alive and intact. In 1963 Angelo moved to Rome, a city unknown to him then but which has never failed to continue surprising him since. In the years he spent there every foreshortening seemed worthy of being recorded and fixed in time. Angelo did not greatly differentiate the subjects to take photos of, his method was of embracing everything in a short time, with no other wish  than to give life and meaning, through images, to what he was seeing: a sort of nearer and more solid reality.

At the beginning of the 70's he moved to Turin where he started to deepen  his interest in photography and where he found a more stimulating and creative environment. “But technique is worth nothing without the idea and Art cannot stop at learning only”. With time he began to create photographs in his immagination; born of  a thought, perfected. He began to understand that every detail had its own  importance, singularly and as part of a whole, and that a photograph, as a story or a sculpture, had to be complete, clean and harmonious; nothing to be added or taken away. This is photography for him now and seems to be in keeping with his way approaching things; a sense of existence which one could define naturalistic, complete. However he has always considered photography a popular art, accessible to a large number of people but which requires a great ability of observation and attention to  every single detail. Everything has to flow together in a technique based on simple rules to follow carefully and  precisely which he would like to comunicate.

First he believes that the photograph must be already complete in the photographer's mind before it has been taken and therefore it is necessary to know from the beginning what one wants to comunicate and show. To photograph people, one must pay attention to their expressions and their faces knowing that the protrait and the figure always need some adjustment: proportion and a suitable surrounding for the subject that must stay in the shade and without details that could reflect dominating colours. Using the light is fundamental and perhaps it is the most difficult thing to learn. The photographs, which for some reason he could not produce, are all in his memory, like truths which  will always belong to him. For the last few years he has  taken part in photographic competitions and on many occasions has won first prize or important national and international appraisal.

One of his favourite photographs (Smog 2000) won the second prize at the “Focus on your world 1999-2000” photograph competition summoned worldwide by UNEP (United Nations Environment Program) to testify the state of Earth's health. In this contest, sponsorized by Canon and arrived at its third year, thousands of photographers from 160 different countries took part and the final awards ceremony  took place in New York. This same city was the first stage of an itinerant exhibition that took the best works to be shown in Yokohama and in Paris where his photograph, in particular, was awarded by the president of Canon Europe, Mr Tsuruoka.

The image, which was  the only one from Italy to be admitted at the contest and that today is still shown in exhibitions and published in specialized magazines, shows the situation in which children are too often forced to live; the first victims of the consumer society and pollution. Angelo tried to underline their hardship and the great anxiety for the environmental situation at the same time, for a nature which industrialization is  stifling   perhaps in an irreversible way. He has always and still continues to believe (this has been the main purpose of his photography) that the only way to try, where it is still possible, to improve, to protect or even only to limit the damage already done, is by making as many people as possible aware of the problem, by observing, reflecting and testifying. A camera  can be an excellent instrument!