Surfers – A few more words on my new portrait project

Tom, Hawaiian surfer

I wanted to talk more about my new project: Surfers. As I said in my previous post I’m working on a series of portraits of surfers, mostly in California. This is not the usual tribute to pro surfers, or to the cool surfing spots in the world, or to the surf lifestyle, which is beautiful, of course, but not always true.

Surf is a lot more. And this project is my tribute to this MORE. Surf is made of real people, like you and me, who share the same passion. This passion makes them wake up in the early morning, maybe on a cloudy day, in winter, and drive two hours to get to the right spot. It’s very different from the idealized sunny day, where the water is warm and the girls are pretty. Most waters in California are cold, especially considering that winter is the best season for surf. So you have to wear your wetsuit, and maybe you can consider the water to not be “that cold” (I still can’t). Anyway, these people make a lot of sacrifices to fulfill their passion. For these reasons I’ve decided to do these series of portraits with a different style from my own, which is usually clean and polished. I wanted to be able to show the realness of these people. So, to capture it, I had to shoot them when they just came out of the water. I wanted to get the EXPERIENCE they had that day, surfing. If anybody of you have ever surfed, then you must know that the experience stays alive for a couple of hours after it: it’s a feeling of peace and accomplishment, that I’ve only experienced when surfing or swimming. There something magical in being in the water for long, the mind gets clear, and everything vanishes.

This is what I wanted to capture.

So, this is how I met Tom, from Hawaii, where the water is really warm compared to here. I’ve seen him coming out of the water, and I rushed to stop him. We started chatting. He was visiting a friend, and on this cloudy morning, he decided to grab a wetsuit and a surfboard, and went to Emma Wood beach, close to Ventura. There’s something really cool in his story, in the fact that even if he was travelling outside of his country, he decided to go surfing, alone. 

That was the moment. Can I take a few portraits of you, Tom?

Sure.

Tom, Hawaiian surfer

P:S. In the next weeks I’m going to post more photos from this project, and I’ll also go out shooting again, stay tuned.

Surfers

I’m working on a new personal project, a series of portraits of surfers. I’ve always been fascinated by the surf culture and this project is a great opportunity for me to learn about it through the people who made surf what it is, in one of the most popular places for surfing, California.

This is one of the people I’ve been photographing today in Pitas Point, close to Ventura.

His name is Steven.

I’ve talked to Steven for a little while, right after he came out of the water, his family waiting for him.

“How long have you been surfing?”

“For all my life.”

Subtleties

When you shoot a portrait, subtleties make a huge difference. When you edit a portrait session  you can see that each moment is different from the previous, and that there’s no possibility of having the same photographs or expressions. And that’s because when you shoot a person there are many dynamics involved: how you relate to the person you shoot, how you direct them, and how you manage to get the expression you want from them. These are all variables which you can’t predict. For these reasons edit down the photos and pick “the best one” (if you can actually say that there’s a “best one”, when it’s most correct to say that there’s a favorite one) is the most difficult moment of the entire shooting.

Without talking about the light and the impact it has on the mood of the photograph and on the facial features of a person, there are many other factors that change one photo to the next, like the direction of the gaze, a subtle tilt of the head to the back shoulder or to the front, the chin up or down, framing in the perfect center or close to one border, get close by some inches, tilt the camera just a bit to the left… These are all small adjustments that change completely the photograph.

Here’s a portrait session I had with my friend and photographer Lucas Aznar, and as you can see each of these photos tells a completely different story.

Which one is your favorite, and why?

Portrait of Lucas

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

THE LONGEST WAY HOME – THE IMAGES

My first personal exhibition has ended. For those of you who didn’t make it, here are some of the images that were shown. These images are a collection of my works, from the moment I’ve started taking pictures till now. For me, It was a good way to remember all the steps that I did to become the photographer I am now, and along with this, who I became. “The longest way home” really intended to be this: the road that each of us do everyday to become who we are. In my case, I had to go far away from Italy, my home, to study at the Brooks Institute of photography in Santa Barbara, California.

From the exhibition manifesto:

“There are people who are satisfied with what they have. Some other can appreciate what they have only when this is lost. Like me. For this reason traveling is something that I need, beyond being a pleasure. It’s the need of let everything go, to take a break from everyday’s life to really understand its value. But travelling is also memory, and photography is what makes it still alive and present. It let us go back to moments that would be lost otherwise. And it lets us relive them, and mostly, it let us understand what they meant to us.

This photographs are exactly the attempt to go back to places and emotions that are far away, to better understand them. Through this photographs of places, people or animals, it relives my memory and my unconscious gaze on it. The famous photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson used to say that to photograph means putting one’s head, one’s eye and one’s heart on the same axis. If photographing is really this act, then a photograph is the tangible result of it to which another ingredient is added: memory.

It is only thanks to memory that we can say who we are. It is only our story that defines us as unique and diverse from each other.

“It’s not were you are at, It’s the journey you’ve taken.”

THE LONGEST WAY HOME

I’m really happy to announce that my first personal exhibition is going to take place at the Queriniana library in my own town, Brescia, tomorrow, friday December 16th. It’s a great honor and pleasure for me, because I’m currently living in Santa Barbara: it’s nice to be able to go back to my own town and share what I do with my people. The show is going to end on December 30th, so if you are around, come and take a look! I would love to have a feedback.

The exhibition is going to be at the Queriniana Library of Brescia (photos below). It’s a great location with beautiful paintings and old books: it feels great to have my work displayed in such a cool place.

I would like to thank all the people who helped me in doing this. A special thank to Mario Baldoli, Andrea Zucchini and Piera Maculotti for the precious help.

Sono molto felice di avere la mia prima mostra personale domani, venerdì 16 Dicembre, alla biblioteca Queriniana della mia città, Brescia. Vivendo a Santa Barbara, per me è un grande onore e un grande piacere condividere con le persone della mia città il mio lavoro. La mostra durerà fino al 31 Dicembre, se siete da queste parti, fateci un salto!

La mostra sarà in una biblioteca con affreschi stupendi e antichi libri: è bello poter esporre i miei lavori in un ambiente del genere.

Vorrei ringraziare tutti quelli che mi hanno aiutato a rendere questo possibile. Un ringraziamento speciale a Mario Baldoli, Andrea Zucchini, e Piera Maculotti.

Airports

A few days ago I flew back from Santa Barbara to my home, in Italy. The journey was very long: 2 hours on a bus to L.A. airport, 3 hours of wait, 12 of flight to London, 4 hours waiting for the flight to Milan, 2 hours flight, and 1 hour to drive home. For a total of 24 Hours, 4 meals, 1 1/4 red wine and 1 small Jack Daniels to get some sleep, 2 movies, 1 episode of Mad men, 2 hours photoshopping, 5 times in the toilet, 0 words to the guy next to me. That’s a record! He actually never went to the toilet, and never moved from his seat. For 12 hours. I really envy him…

But a part from this, It’s fun if you live it as a time to relax, and to enjoying what the traveling is: discovering things that are new for you. My last session at school has been really intense, and this was the first time (in a long time) that I could shoot some pictures for myself, without having to think about preparing the shot, worrying about the style, the mood, or the lighting. The lighting!  I’ve spent the last four months modifying the existing light with speedlights, strobes, umbrellas, softoboxes and beauty dishes, so that walking around just with my camera was a dream come true. It’s a different approach, you just use the existing light, there’s not much else you can do. So this is basically what determines what you’ll be shooting. Modifying the existing light has a more active and creative side, but to shoot with the ambient light, it means to evaluate it and most of the time, you’ll have just to go with it. One is a creative way, the other is an observational way (which is creative too in a different way).

Anyway, I love airports, there are so many different stories to watch. If you have the time and your flight is late, I suggest you just look around you. You’ll discover that people are amazing, and even if everybody is there just to go somewhere else, everybody carries his own, unique story. This is what I  was thinking when I walked into the shots with the people I made (you can see them down below). Light helped me a lot in this, as people were walking from darkness to light, like when somebody is a complete stranger to you and when you notice him, he starts to become familiar. (I wonder who is the C.I.A. guy with the badge, and the guy that look like a bad guy from an action movie, giving the signal to blow up the airport with his earphones whenever he wants to).

This is the story of the trip from LAX-London Heathrow, London Heathrow-Milan Linate, and of the people that took part of it on Wednesday 18th and Thursday 19th of April 2012.

Classmates

A few months ago I’ve shot these pictures of my friends Ben, Chelsea and Lexus. I’ve stumbled on ‘em today while I was selecting some images to print for a portfolio review. Even if it wasn’t that much ago, it really feels like years, for how much I’ve been working lately!

Here they are.

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...