“Clouds are marching along,Singing a song just like they do.
If the clouds were singing a song
I’d sing along, wouldn’t you too?
If you just knew what they could do,
Oh, if you just knew, what would they do?
And if the birds are just hollow words
Flying along singing a song,
What would they do if they just knew
What they could do, oh, if they just knew?
I know it’s sad that I never gave a damn about the weather
And it never gave a damn about me.
I know it’s sad that I never gave a damn about the weather
And it never gave a damn about me.
No, it never gave a damn about me.
I know it’s mad, but if I go to hell, will you come with me or just leave?
I know it’s mad, but if the world were ending, would you kiss me or just leave me,
Just leave me?”
[ Do You Know What I’m Seeing? - Panic! At The Disco ]
The first part of my photoshoot with the handsome Alessio La Bella taken in Stupinigi, near Turin, has been published. All the photos featuring Alessio alone are up and now I’m going to publish the second part, which features both him and the charming Giulia Biletta (previously starring as Jezebeth for my Infernal Lords series). As we’re about mid-way, with this photo perfectly summarizing what I meant to represent in this shoot, I think it’s time to spend some words about this whole series.
A bit of background first: I met Alessio totally randomly at Lucca Comics And Games 2011 where he had a kingyo-sukui stand together with a friend, and I immediately thought he’d look awesome in front of my lens. I looked up his Kingyo Sukui Facebook page (which I recommend you to visit if you’re interested in nice gadgets) and added him just in case. When I started planning my trip to visit BriarRose in Turin, I asked him if by any chance he could interested in posing, he agreed and we arranged a meeting. Which became a sort of photography workshop when not only BriarRose joined as a photographer (I initially asked her to help me as MUA and assistant), but also Giulia came to model. But despite things getting a bit delirious (mainly because you can’t expect BriarRose, Giulia and me to be serious for more than ten seconds when we’re all together), we ended up mutually boosting our creativity with brilliant results.
This time, I deliberately chose a model who was totally out of the goth scene because I just wanted to focus on different things. Which is, I wanted to do an autumn-winter fashion editorial-like thing with a shade of emotion in it. Also, I had just bought my new 50mm lens and I wanted to explore its potential by putting more care into the composition and such.
I was quite glad to learn that Alessio had no modelling experience whatsoever, as this would preserve the genuineness of the feelings I wanted the photos to have (it could have turned into him being a bit awkward at the beginning, but I was sure I would overcome it with a good direction if that were the case). This proved to be the right choice: while I gladly found out he could work without having to be strictly directed, allowing me to take care of the composition, his way of posing was so natural and genuine that he added the emotional depth I wanted to complete the fashionable feeling. This can be clearly seen in the photo above, which was actually taken while he was standing up after posing for another photo, but turned out to be exactly what I wanted. Thism together with more everyday-like outfits and the autumn magic of the location, which added either a romantic or a decadent feeling depending on the mood of the photo, I was able to achieve exactly what I wanted, even getting to develop old concepts of mine such as Eliot.
Technically speaking, the main features of this photoshoot was the use of extremely short depth of field to explore the bokeh world, an accurate study of compositions (pyramidal such as in The Promise, use of natural frames such in Looking Outside Inside) and a careful evaluation of lights and shadows in order to make volumes stand out and get dramatic black and whites in postproduction (except for Holy Pool Of Memories and Eliot which relied mostly on colours instead). I also worked a lot with diptychs, often thinking of how two photos would look if matched on two pages of a magazine (even though most of diptych are yet to come). To be completely honest – and I rarely give in to free self-congratulation – when I was done with post-production I was stunned by some of my own photos and wondered, did I really take them myself? It was a bit weird to see how I improved virtually overnight just by buying a better lens which removed several limits I needed to overcome to fully express my ideas. Now I can’t wait to take more photos, I’m eager to further explore what I can do now with a better equipment.
But meanwhile, enjoy the first part of this photoshoot:
A bit of background first: I met Alessio totally randomly at Lucca Comics And Games 2011 where he had a kingyo-sukui stand together with a friend, and I immediately thought he’d look awesome in front of my lens. I looked up his Kingyo Sukui Facebook page (which I recommend you to visit if you’re interested in nice gadgets) and added him just in case. When I started planning my trip to visit BriarRose in Turin, I asked him if by any chance he could interested in posing, he agreed and we arranged a meeting. Which became a sort of photography workshop when not only BriarRose joined as a photographer (I initially asked her to help me as MUA and assistant), but also Giulia came to model. But despite things getting a bit delirious (mainly because you can’t expect BriarRose, Giulia and me to be serious for more than ten seconds when we’re all together), we ended up mutually boosting our creativity with brilliant results.
This time, I deliberately chose a model who was totally out of the goth scene because I just wanted to focus on different things. Which is, I wanted to do an autumn-winter fashion editorial-like thing with a shade of emotion in it. Also, I had just bought my new 50mm lens and I wanted to explore its potential by putting more care into the composition and such.
I was quite glad to learn that Alessio had no modelling experience whatsoever, as this would preserve the genuineness of the feelings I wanted the photos to have (it could have turned into him being a bit awkward at the beginning, but I was sure I would overcome it with a good direction if that were the case). This proved to be the right choice: while I gladly found out he could work without having to be strictly directed, allowing me to take care of the composition, his way of posing was so natural and genuine that he added the emotional depth I wanted to complete the fashionable feeling. This can be clearly seen in the photo above, which was actually taken while he was standing up after posing for another photo, but turned out to be exactly what I wanted. Thism together with more everyday-like outfits and the autumn magic of the location, which added either a romantic or a decadent feeling depending on the mood of the photo, I was able to achieve exactly what I wanted, even getting to develop old concepts of mine such as Eliot.
Technically speaking, the main features of this photoshoot was the use of extremely short depth of field to explore the bokeh world, an accurate study of compositions (pyramidal such as in The Promise, use of natural frames such in Looking Outside Inside) and a careful evaluation of lights and shadows in order to make volumes stand out and get dramatic black and whites in postproduction (except for Holy Pool Of Memories and Eliot which relied mostly on colours instead). I also worked a lot with diptychs, often thinking of how two photos would look if matched on two pages of a magazine (even though most of diptych are yet to come). To be completely honest – and I rarely give in to free self-congratulation – when I was done with post-production I was stunned by some of my own photos and wondered, did I really take them myself? It was a bit weird to see how I improved virtually overnight just by buying a better lens which removed several limits I needed to overcome to fully express my ideas. Now I can’t wait to take more photos, I’m eager to further explore what I can do now with a better equipment.
But meanwhile, enjoy the first part of this photoshoot:
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