Photography and Improvements: what I’ve learned from the begin of this 2021

Posted on Apr 13th, 2021

An opportunity for personal growth

It’s been a while since my last blog post.

I must say that my silence was obviously motivated by the global stalemate due to Covid.

Here in Italy since November, we have had periods with the country divided into different critical areas. Each region thus adopted more or less restrictive measures. Even if we did not have a real total lockdown as happened between March to May 2020, even this beginning of 2021 has led to strong limitations in mobility, and above all in the possibility of being able to work regularly.

Many of the fashion events I’ve been following in recent years (including Pitti Uomo fashion fair) have been canceled, and many shoots have been delayed by companies waiting for better times.

Compared to the spring 2020 lockdown, however, I must say that I lived this period with great emotional tranquility and above all with the possibility of dedicating the extra time available to study. In this way, I was able to deepen many topics related to photography both from a technical point of view and above all from a linguistic point of view.

So here are some of the things that I have explored in these first four months of the year. Many of these topics will be an occasion for me to create in-depth blog posts, as well as specific online courses and workshops.

Insights into the color theory

I studied and got deeper inside color theory, an aspect in which I have always had a great interest.
I’ve read some books related to the perception of color in human history and culture (with this amazing Italian book written by Riccardo Falcinelli), I deepened the use of color in cinema, especially in the Technicolor process (I found this book named “Glorious Technicolor” on an E-Bay auction), I bought a new X-Rite calibrator (previously I used the Spyder Pro calibrator) and the Color Passport in order to create my custom color profiles.

New Photographic sessions

I started thinking about new photographic series to make.

On the one hand, there are some personal projects that I want to develop related to landscape, color and shape.

So I started experimenting especially with smartphone photography and the iPhone 12 Pro Max, shooting with the Apple ProRAW format. It is an exercise that is still relevant today since leads me to develop themes related to the environment and geometric shapes which I then upload as Stories on Instagram in a section called “Days”.

On the other hand, I organized some new portrait and fashion photo sessions, starting a new collaboration with an agency and a fashion stylist. In these sessions, I have tried to have a fresh photographic approach, going to give my photos a more spontaneous feeling with some analog vibes.

Going back to use analog photography

I studied and acquired tools to be able to develop color films at home. This has always been my will, but I had never approached it for fear of the difficulty of the process. However, after seeing that it was possible to do it at home, I began the process of studying and collecting the tools I needed.

I also deepened the issue of scanning the negative, thus creating a workflow using the mirrorless camera to photograph the negative. Also for these aspects, I bought some accessories and software that help me to get really perfect results. On these aspects, I have planned some in-depth posts and also a possible online course.

Developing the Apple ProRaw custom color profile and preset

I’ve worked and developed the custom color profiles and presets for Apple ProRAW in Lightroom.

On this aspect, I must say that it certainly took me longer than I had expected at the beginning, but certainly, the study of color and custom color presets with X-Rite targets allowed me to refine and create color presets that are not just a series of “recipes”, but also a possible workflow to be able to quickly develop photos from Lightroom on mobile (and yes, the next step will be to port them for Capture One Pro).

Going back to use Lightroom Classic for photo library organization

Personal photo library organization: I decided to re-organize my online portfolios about Fashion, Portrait and Lifestyle photography.

It was thus an opportunity to review important works that I had shot in the last five/six years and above all to review my approach to archiving and editing photos. I also revised my editorial plan for Instagram, closing the second profile dedicated to fashion photography and focusing everything on a single account.

All this work has led me to reconnect with Lightroom Classic after using Capture One Pro almost exclusively for the past two years.

I have thus refined a workflow in which I mainly use Lightroom Classic for all the archiving work, collection creation and metadata, and Capture One Pro for the development of photo sessions related to portrait and fashion photography (I prefer the skin tone rendering in Capture One versus Lightroom). This will be the topic of the next blog post.

Some of my personal inspiration for this begin of 2021

• Alec Soth: loved the series on Magnum learn about his personal artistic photographic approach.
• Ethan Gulley: admiring his analog color tones.
• Kyle McDougall: great YouTube channel all about analog photography.
• Luigi Ghirri: an Italian photographer author with his own unique vision.
• Giovanni Gastel: one of the greatest Italian fashion and portrait photographer that unluckily has recently passed away.
• Platon: saw his work and the episode from Netflix (now free to view on YouTube).
• Dino Kuznik: love his series in the American landscape with those analog tones.
• Wes Anderson: I saw the complete filmography of this great filmmaker. Love his color, his camera approach and the story development.
• Into the Wild: the first movie I saw in 2021. An inspirational soul journey.

Last but not least, I can announce that I have become an Uncle as my sister gave birth on 4/3/21 to a beautiful baby!