I love you but I've chosen darkness. A photographic project

I love portrait photography, it's unbelievable the connection you get to establish with people trough this kind of photography. This picture belongs to a series I'm still working on, called I Love You but I've Chosen Darkness by which I try to photograph and reproduce by lighting that "something broken" people sometimes carry inside.

Making of a fashion shooting in Barcelona

Making Of Fashion shooting from Donatello Romanazzi on Vimeo.

This is the making of the fashion shooting we did some days ago in a location in the centre of Barcelona. It was shot on medium format using Portra 400 film. You can read how it was prepared here. In the next days I'll be able to show you the result of the session. 

Thanks to Nuria Herrero who shot and edited the behind the scenes video.

The old cart in the stone stable

The repetitive pattern of the stones, the circular form of the wheels and the arches, the light bursting out from the little window creating a gradient with shadows looking like a natural vignette... And the subject: that old cart resting in the unused stone stable after years of service. What would have it carried? and where? It was just perfect. I was in the right place at the right time: minutes after I took the photo that light was gone, leaving the stable in almost total darkness and the cart visually silent.

Knowing light. Lighting set-ups (II) Broad and short light.

Read part I here.

There are several ways to dispose lights: it will depends on the scene we want to light, what part of the scene we want to highlight, what we don't want to, the mood we want to give the whole scene...

The most common lighting set-up is the triangle set-up, where one light is positioned on the right side of the camera and the other one on the left side. Distance from the camera, angle, height of the lights depend on your choice; someone will tell you one thing about this matter while someone else will tell you exactly the opposite. It doesn't really matter! 

The important issue is that the two lights differs in power: the Key light has to be more powerful than the Fill light; by this we will get some contrast and depth in the image and, most important of all, the light in the scene will have a direction.

Depending on where lights are positioned on the side of the camera, only two situation can occur: each one of the two lights falls on different areas of the subject or they overlay summing its lights.

 

When lights overlay on one part of the subject we will have a sum of the two lights while the opposite side will be lit just by one. This will give us the contrast of the scene. The most common contrast used is the 1:3 contrast, where the brighter part of the subject is lit 3 times more than the other side. It's the easiest contrast to get because you just need the key light to be twice as powerful as the fill light. 

In a portrait, if the brighter side of the subject faces the camera, we are using a broad lighting set-up; if it's the darker side facing the camera, we are using a short lighting set-ups. 

Broad lighting

Deciding which one of those we should use it is not only a matter of mood because these two lighting set-ups have a strong effect on a subject's features: broad lighting widens while short lightning narrows.

Short lighting

So, which set-up would you use for a round face?

Stay tuned for more lighting set-ups!

A Carioca Flower in "Jardim Bot anico"

I was walking in the Botanic Garden of Rio de Janeiro (as you guessed from the silhouette of the Corcovado) when I saw this young girl with an unusual dress walking quite in a hurry. I had my camera loaded with Fuji Superia X-tra and shot without hesitation, then I followed her. Who was she? Where was she going to? Why was she dressed like that? Few minutes later I had all the answers but I like to remember her as a carioca exotic flower

Behind the scenes of a fashion shooting in Barcelona. How it is prepared.

When I prepare a shooting I like to have meetings with all the team so everyone know what it is about and what my idea is, I tell them what I want and hear suggestions that can make the idea go a step further. We create the shooting together. This way everyone will feel more involved and motivated and the work during session will flow smoothly. I firmly believe that the most important aspect of every kind of shooting is communication.

9:00 All the team meet at the chosen studio in the centre of Barcelona.

9:30 Laura, the model, is with the MUA. Normally I would be there, talking to her and explaining the idea of the shooting, the poses I want, etc. But this time I had the opportunity to meet her before the shooting so we already went trough the mood-board and had a long talk which helped the model to feel comfortable during the shooting.

9:45 The stylist prepares dress and props, I help my assistant to set up the lights.  Every now and then I pop in the make-up room to have few words with Laura to maintain the complicity we built.

10:30 I load the films into the backs of my camera; we shooting on Kodak Portra on a medium Format camera. My assistant cleans the lenses we will be using.

10:45 Laura is almost ready.  Checking  last details before start shooting.

10:50 I meter the light to be sure the exposure is the one I want, meanwhile I keep talking to Laura and remind her the mood she has to express in this shot

10:54 I take some polaroids to check that light and shadows are the ones I was after. I also study them looking for what doesn't work and correct it.

11:02 Ready to shoot! I take 5 or 6 photos with little differences in pose and then we change dresses, set and lights starting all over again.

18:00 The session is over. We had 6 changes for dresses, make up, hair style and set. Every one is tired, it was quite hard, but it isn't over for me: I can't wait to get to the studio and start developing the film rolls with the C41 process.

Do you want to know the result of this shooting? Stay tuned then!

The other Ireland. Abandoned gas station

I love abandoned places. They are full of untold stories and waiting for a camera to immortalize them before disappearing for ever. Like this old gas station on the road to Bushmills, Northern Ireland. I waited the all day in order to get a decent light. After self developing the film with the C41 process and seeing the result, I could see that the wait was well worth it.