Portfolio

During the last week I’ve finished my first printed portfolio, and I had it judged by three professional photographers receiving great feedbacks and tips. A printed portfolio is a necessary tool for every photographer to present their work to agencies, art directors, etc… The beauty of it is that it involves a lot of other skills, that are not closely related to photography: sense of design, style and personal taste. I’ve really enjoyed working on it because it’s a very creative process. Not only you can see your finished work, nicely printed on paper of your choice (for mine, I’ve used the Ilford Smooth Pearl, a beautiful luster paper, which holds nice contrast and deep blacks), but also you work creatively to reinforce the style of your work. There are a lot of ways to present a portfolio: you can choose a classical portfolio case (which I used), where you can change the order of the pages or change the photographs to target different clients, a portfolio box, where the prints are standalone (better for fine art photographers), or a custom-made book, which is the nicest one in term of impact on the viewer, but has also the limit of being a finished piece that you can’t upgrade. All of these convey a different meaning to your work, but they all offer a high level of customization.

These are a few images from my people portfolio: some of them are brand new, and some less, but they all have been shot in the last year. I used a simple, clean-looking portfolio case and layout, which I feel reflects my work. I encourage every photographer or any aspiring one to print their work and lay it out in a book, or in any way you want it to be, because it’s a great way to think about your work, and mostly, to see it done, finished. There’s no right or wrong, we are in the land of personal taste: that’s the beauty of it.

Considerations

Since I’ve started the Brooks Institute of photography, in August 2011, I’ve been shooting the most diverse things: landscapes, products, architecture, stock, lifestyle. Even if I don’t like to put myself in a box, and restrict my work on a single category, I have to say that shooting people is one of the things that I like the most. It’s a process that involve all your skills as a photographer, but beyond that, it also show the person you are, more than every other kind of photography. When you shoot a person you have to communicate, give direction to make your vision understandable by the person you are photographing, but at the same time you have to leave the freedom of expression that you want from the person in front of you. It’s an evolving process that is never the same. That’s why I like it.

Daniel Johung, photographer and friend

Here are some photos that I’ve taken lately. They were shot not to far apart from each other. In these different sets of photographs, to my surprise, I see a different me. I can’t say what’s the direction I’m taking, but I’m just enjoying this moment, and the more it takes me off guard, the more I enjoy it. This is because photography doesn’t stop after you’ve pressed the shutter. Photography is going back to yourself to reflect on who you are. That’s why most people stop doing it, because they either don’t like what they see, or they are afraid of it, or they are afraid of what other people might think of their work (and in doing so, they are afraid of what other people think of them). But you have to sit back and relax, and enjoy what you see, because you did it, it’s your work, not everybody else’s.

Ben Flynn, photographer and friend

Daniel Johung, photographer and friend

PATH contest

I’ve got the honor to have two pictures selected to be shown al the Gallery 27 at the Brooks Institute of photography in Santa Barbara. There will be an exhibition with the theme “The Path” from May 3rd to June 15th. If you are around come and give it a look. Along with my pictures, there will be other very talented photographer, and I’m really grateful to have my works displayed with some photographers that are a real inspiration to me, like Chris Broughton (you can check his website by clicking here).

These are the photos they’ve selected. The first is taken in Sori, Italy, where I spend almost every summer of my life (my mother is in fact born in Genova). The other one is a picture that I took here in Santa Barbara on a foggy and cold night. I like the fact that these photos represent together my old and my new life, and the person I am today. To me the path is the road we travel to be who we are, and the beauty of it, the beauty of a travel, is not in arriving somewhere, but resides in the road we walked. This is why I’m really happy that both these two photos have been selected, they tell together a bigger story of myself, showing the road that made me to the person I am today.

New works soon..

Lately I've been really busy and I've not updated the blog! I've shot a lot and there will be a lot of new posts, stay tuned...

The art of flight

I had the privilege of flying yesterday morning over the city I currently live in, Santa Barbara. And this has been possible thanks to my good friend Julien Lecomte, who just had his license.

After a night of bad sleep, I got up at 6 AM, packed my photo gear and drove to the Santa Barbara airport, where he was waiting for me. After sneaking in the airport (you just open a small door with a card and you are in. I wish you could do that at LAX too!), we prepared the airplane (especially me), filled it with fuel and took off. By the way, don’t go to refill you car at the airport, it’s more expensive…

It was an amazing experience that everybody should try at least once in their life. Plus, I always wanted to be a pilot since I was a kid, and even if I wasn’t driving it was amazing just to be there. I was more worried the night before, but I guess it was only excitement. On the plane I felt like it was natural to be there. I’m thinking to get my own license right now…

Anyway! Too many words… This is the story in pictures. Better than words… But not even close to what is “flying”.

yes, gopro. Julien probably had crazy tricks and turns in mind. I’m glad that he didn’t do any!Ciao mamma shotI like photograph where there’s a big sense of composition, order, geometry. I like it when it is very graphic and ordered. This is why I’ve always wanted to shoot houses from above. We all think that our house is special. It’s big, small, it’s “bigger than”, it’s “nicer”. It’s ours… From above they are just  boxes. Big, small, red green or blue. They are just the same. 

Mario Giacomelli, part 1

I’ve decided to talk about the italian photographer Mario Giacomelli two days ago, when I stumbled in a picture that I’ve shot last winter with my iPhone. It was the page of a book and I started to read it again, not remembering at all what book could have been from. When I was done with it, I knew immediately that the book was about Mario Giacomelli because of the simplicity of the words, which also makes the beauty of his person. The book is called “My whole life”, and it’s actually a collection of chat on photography and on its own life.

Mario Giacomelli was a great photographer, one of my favorite, and I believe a unique one in the whole world because the way he did it is so different from everybody else. I’ll talk more about him and his pictures in a future post, right now I want to talk about the page I found, because I really believe the same things about photography (and life too). Here it is:

Yes I know it’s in italian, and yes I know it’s a bad picture! But It was a reminder, and I’ll translate it for you. Here it goes (something like this):

“I’m sure that I will stop (to photograph), I will die, and I won’t have understood anything about photography, because I can’t figure it out. Not in its being an image, I can’t figure it out as a language, because the only thing that matter to me is to have that desire. It happens on sunday, the only day where I shoot: I wake up, I know that I go out to get a cappuccino – I just do it on Sundays -, I wear sunday clothes. I’m like farmers, it’s important to me (to have these rituals). If sunday is a day just on the calendar, It’s not sunday anymore, it’s a day like the others! But if you live it like I do, (as a ritual) – I shave, I always have the same pasta out at the restaurant, the same cappuccino – myself, that always hate repetitions but end up in doing them all – it’s not a repetitions anymore! This is something that goes on and on, there is not repetitions in doing the same things if you make them live.

Then I get on the car, I start the engine and I go wherever the car wants: I feel that it wants to go left, then right… I don’t understand where it wants to go: I don’t know where I’m going because it doesn’t exist a place in the world where you can say: “if you go there you will take pictures”. I am a person that needs to find, and to find you can’t sleep, you have to move! So wherever direction I feel that the car wants to go, I let it go, and I walk with it.”

Right now I just would like to have the book with me because I would like to go on and read to know what he would have said next… But anyway, I just wanted to share this page because I feel I intend photography like him. Something not completing rational, an evolving process. A process that makes you grow, and reflect on the world you see.

That’s it for now. As I said I’ll talk more about his most beautiful pictures in a future post. If you are curious and you can’t wait, goggle him!

arnaldoabba.com

Finally yestererday I’ve created my website! You can see it by clicking here

the main page of my website arnaldoabba.com

I’ve been working on it for almost 3 months, it’s definitively not an easy process! First you have to choose if you want a custom template (which is very expensive!) or a pre made template (a lot cheaper), then you have to buy a domain, then of course you need to have categories and a selection of pictures that you like (and they have to be edited and sized correctly), create a biography, choose the fonts, the style, decide what you want to communicate, etc…

But after all, it’s worthy! Also because with digital nowadays your pictures are always kept in an hard drive all the time, far away from your sight. Sometimes they’re printed, but most of the time they wait for you to go throughout them again for a short while. It’s definitely better to have ‘em displayed somewhere where you can see ‘em everyday. And you fall in love with picture that you didn’t like that much, or you change your mind on your favorites ones. And you also create a layout of pictures and you see that they have a different meaning if they are close to another one, you create a new story, a new meaning. And most of all, you see where you are going, what you are, what you like and what you don’t.

Go and check out my website and feel free to reply to this post, telling what you like, what you don’t, and in this case what you would change. I would really appreciate any feedback, so don’t hesitate!

Inspiration

I’m back! It’s been a month since my last post, a long time… I’ve been taking a long relaxing vacation back in Italy with my family and friends… I needed it! I’ve done the things that you always do when you are home, but this time I’ve really enjoyed every single moment of it. Living far away makes you aware of what is important for you, and makes you aware of what are your needs in life.

Speaking of which, also inspiration is what makes you strive to be something different, to be better in what you do and what you love. And you can only achieve that by looking around you, seeing what other people do or have done in the past. In my history of photography class my teacher Christopher Broughton (who is an amazing photographer as well as an amazingly passionate teacher. Check his works out!) has been telling us a story about this. He was reviewing one of his student’s portfolio of cloud pictures and he pointed out: “I like this pictures, they remind me of the works that Alfred Stieglitz and Ansel Adams did”. And the student was literally falling from the sky:”You mean somebody else did this before?”

The problem is not whether you are doing something that has already been done in the past or not (everything has been done already! In fact, in my opinion nothing is new). The thing is: you have to be aware of what people have done in the past, “because you will be compared to them”, Chris continues. And knowing it will only make you aware of what you like and what you want. Your taste will lead you to become the person (the photographer) that you want to be.

I’m pretty sure that the photographer David Lachapelle knew the works of a mid 19th century photographer, Orcar Gustave Rejlander, and his amazing allegoric picture Two ways of life (below)

As I’m pretty sure that Oscar Gustave Rejlander was inspired and knew the work of the italian painter Raphael and his famous painting The school of Athens (below)

This is why last week I went with some friends at Photo LA, an amazing collection of galleries from all Los Angeles displaying prints of Henry Cartier-Bresson, Diane Arbus or Sebastian Salgado, as well as many and many other amazing photographers. After that show, you really feel inspired and you just want to prove to yourself that you can be in a gallery like that, one day… And you can take from them so many ideas, just by seeing what is that makes you stop in front of a picture as well as seeing what is not making you stop, to understand what is missing. This is what “knowing what others do” is all about: is knowing what YOU want to do.

After Photo LA I started shooting right away… But this is a new story…

Digital Vs. Film

They say that digital have made photography so much easier. That in the old days with film you couldn’t see what you were taking pictures of, and since now you can do that, you can repair a bad shot instantly. Thus life is way easier nowadays… Or it should be…

I really don’t agree with this at all! I feel that not only life is not easier, but also you have to work much more! And part of this comes from the fact that shooting more doesn’t cost money. But the problem is not just “how much you shoot”. The problem is also “how much you work on a single file”. You can work for years on a single picture and always get a new one. I’ve found out that with the film pictures I already have, the 60% is “good as it is”. If you don’t process and develop the negative on your own, you already have the final picture, there’s not much you can do. And if you’ve been shooting that in black and white film, black and white will be. Maybe it’s also the fact that the beauty of film resides in its being imperfect, so you just go with it… And I love it!

Now you start from the original file, and you think “let me see thins in black and white”. Then “let me see this in black and white with more contrast”, “let me see this in black and white but with a washed out look”, “what about a sepia tone?”…. And so on…

Life is definitely not easier!

Fifteen virtual copies of Lexus Gallegos, talented photographer, painter, designer and friend

SF

I’ve been in San Francisco again for Thanksgiving. This is the second time that I’ve been there since August, and every time I leave the town thinking that I’ve got to see more of it. It’s an amazing place, one of the cities I like the most in the States, so far. Maybe it’s because it reminds me of Genova in some way… Big city on the sea, hills, going up and down, and no parking at all, and… I got a parking ticket… That’s why!

There’s a nice hostel on Clay street: it’s cheap, the food is good and you have a unique view of the town from the rooftop. The only problem with this place is that you have to live with this italian designer, Nicola Mondini, who is a pain in the ass when he’s busy (most of the time) and nervous (because he doesn’t have time!). But for the rest, he’s a cool guy. And a great car designer (maybe one day he’ll stop drawing micro machines…). Here he is on the roof of his house, on a rare moment of relax.

And then there is his landlord, and old man who owns two buildings in SF, and makes money by renting them to people. I caught him moving non paying tenant’s body parts from his garage to the trash, back and forth. Here’s the evidence. It’s a dirty job, but it has to be done…

My friend Nicola pays his rent regularly…

Anyway, since he was busy all the time, I’ve spent three days going around and shooting like mad, and going back home to download the pictures, work on them, and out again… But it was worth it!

And I had a great time with Nicola, photoshopping like two nerds and laughing like crazy with the daddy long legs video on youtube (“I don’t, I don’t…What??!). If you wonder what I’m talking about, just click here, you’ll understand…

Anyway… Here are some shots that I took. Enjoy!