PERSONAL PROJECT #work in progress

(italian version here!)
In an old post I mentioned a personal research based project that I was working on (and that I haven't finished yet). Here is a short preview of it. 

Its focus is on children and, most important, on the environment. An abused and unhappy environment.

The environment needs to be respected and protected, just like a little child. 

The environment is our life, our home, our shelter.

Their future.

I'd like to thank all the kids who took part in this project. I also want to thank their mothers for their great helpfulness.

This project isn't

VERSACE YOUNG

Some of my pictures for the new Versace Young catalogue.

NY Stories

Italian version here!

I've just come back from a trip to New York. As I am a little Masochistic I prefer to stay at home organizing the photos I took instead of going out and enjoy these beautiful summer days.

Before leaving I bought this amazing photography book, featuring a collection of really wonderful pictures: shots by unknown photographers and very famous artists such as Alfred Stiegliz, Berenice Abbot, Paul Strand...just to name a few. 

You can find it here. I fell in love with it.

I saw a lot of things, took many pictures with my faithful iPhone and walked so much that at the end of the trip I was almost forced to throw my shoes away.

I saw a painting by Jackson Pollock and I got lost in that wonderful whirlpool of colors.

I saw some unmistakable signs of Lucio Fontana's stay in NY. This one was taken at a building site near Central Park. Someone even guessed that it might have been Zorro to do that (alright, alright...that was a silly joke).

Every day I enjoyed the sunset light.

I saw a child saying hello to the East River.

I noticed some sort of geometry and rhythm both in the city's landscape and people.

Finally, at the Museum of Natural History, I found out that I am ready to pass the so called "bikini test"... well... on the moon least.

I want to add one last thing that has nothing to do with New York. As it often happens in Summer, some people (I don't know who) have decided to abandon their undesired pets. I have been having Micio (a cat) as a guest at my place for a few days already. I found him stranded on the road and he has soon become Omero's favorite playmate.  Omero has  managed to resist the temptation to eat the cat and now they get along pretty nicely (well, actually there are a few logistics problems - when Micio gets hold of Omero's tail or when he tries to approach Omero's bowl for example - that still haven't been effectively addressed...)

SPOTLIGHT MAGAZINE - Kids Photography

Italian version here!
When you have some time you can check out the Production Paradise website: you'll find some of my work on today's issue of Spotlight Magazine, dedicated to kids photography.

If you are already sick of my photos (don't worry, all my sympathy and comprehension goes to you) you might want to go through the other sections of the website: you'll find some wonderful stuff. I myself spend whole evenings looking at it, stuck in a trance-like state in front of the monitor admiring the quality of several pictures. Just give it a try.

My work has been taken care of by Sergio: I still haven't had a chance to meet him in person but I'll always be grateful to him for being so helpful, professional and I would say...patient as well. Sometimes I can really be a pain in the neck with all my requests, but he turned out to be my super-hero, putting up with me until the end in exchange for massive quantities of Swiss chocolate (which, by the way, he hasn't received yet).Besides my photos, in the website you will also be able to find a brief introduction of me. As tonight I desperately need my 5 minutes of glory I am going to paste it below. I hope you won't be too moved by it (seriously, my mum found it more touching than any episode of her favorite soap and I personally find this an extraordinary occurrence).

Silvia Coluccelli's photography world is colorful, cheerful, crystal-clear, luminous; like a child's smile, which might be easily captured but needs to be skillfully created first. Silvia is extremely good at communicating with her little friends, by doing so creating an inspiring atmosphere, when the situation calls for it she can become a child herself, playing with the kids, amazing them, wearing colorful wigs or finding new games. She also knows how to turn children into little adults, with an interpretation worthy of an Academy award. She's an emotion and spontaneity director and has her secret as well: it's not a special lens or a camera featuring a disproportionate number of pixels, it's a "tool" that can detect every slight shade of emotions, that pulses with intensity and transmits passion and serenity. It's her big heart, the children can feel it and they tune to it with casualness. The results speak for themselves...

Clients: Novalac Menarini, Versace Young, Brums, Mek, Bimbus, Sottocoperta, Ninetta, Suomy... and many more.

Rapresented in Italy by Doc Artist.

NOVALAC CAMPAIGN

Credits Deputy Creative Director: Paola Morabito Creative Directors: Luca Scotto di Carlo e Vincenzo Gasbarro Art Director: Domenico Stragapede Account Director: Anna De Gaetano  Agenzia: DoC Artist Management and production Fotografo: Silvia Coluccelli Assistente fotografo: Francesco Dedola

This is one of the photos that I took for the new Menarini - Novalac campaign. If you want to know more about it check this out... Otherwise you can jump directly to the backstage photos below. You should be able to spot Rachele sneaking into the location in between pictures. You'll fall in love with her black eyes, as deep as an ocean.

 

I FOUND OUT...

Italian version here!
I've been away for some time and in the meanwhile...
I realized that the North Sea is really poetic. Well, it's cold and windy too. But it might be exactly because of these two characteristics that it is so full of poetry.

I realized that kids find it very entertaining when I wear a wig and bear-ears and take pictures of them,

and that the photographer and her assistant might actually find it even more entertaining.

 I realized that I find it disgusting when I see 8, 9 or 10-year-old girls made up like 20-year-old ones in fashion photos. I say NO to lipstick and mascara on kids' faces. I also say NO to kids posing as adults. 

I say NO to de-kidding kids.

I discovered some unauthorized solid waste dumps. Actually it was not me who discovered them. What I actually found out in this case is that my pictures might help to stir some people's consciences. I don't believe this can really happen though, it seem kind of utopian. Anyway I gave it a try and it was a starting point for a long inner search process that I am not yet able to talk about. I'm only publishing here the photos of some locations where I realized a part of my project. 

I also found out things about each one of you. Don't worry though: being an honest and reserved person I won't say a word about it. I promise. Over.

MY NEW WEB SITE IS ON LINE!

My new web site is on line! have a look here www.silviacoluccelli.com

TIME LAPSE MEK JUNIOR

I started the new year by hiring two new assistants. I met them last December at a Christmas market in Zürich, and we got along well since the very beginning. I need to tell you in advance that they are a couple of rather bizarre characters, very silent and a bit hairy as well. On the other hand they are very good at dealing with children. I was thinking of taking a picture with them so that I can introduce them to you. I'll do that in the next post though... This is "lesson no. 1" of the year 2012, fully dedicated to time lapse photography. 

Do you know what that is?

... If the answer is "yes" don't waste any more time and watch this video.

... If the answer is "no, but I absolutely want to know everithing about it, in a detailed and technical way", than you'd better stop reading this post (unless you want to get a bad stomach ache) and check this link.

... If you don't know much about it but you are looking forward to reading a general overview, than you are in the right place with the right photographer. Well, maybe... 

I cannot promise you that at the end of this post you will be able to master all the tima lapse techniques but at least you will have got a general idea of what it is (actually, as I know myself too well, you might even end up being more confused about it than you are now).

Time lapse photography. If we want to explain it in a few words we can say that it's a sequence of photos taken at regular intervals and finally played back in a video.

Roughly the step-by-step procedure can be summarized as follows:
- Take your reflex camera and place it on a tripod.
- Choose an interesting subject that changes in time (for example a place where people walk, a road with some traffic, the sky with moving clouds ar anithin else that you might fancy...)
- Take photos at regular interval (one every five second, every minutes or any other interval that might suit your subject and your goal) for a lenght of time of your choice.

In order to do that you don't really need to squat next to your camera pressing the button every n seconds (did you really believe that?) Actually, if you are lucky, the menu of your camera will include a function that allows you to have it automatically take photos at regular intervals. By itself. No need to use finger. In case you're unlucky (like myself) and despite all the money you had to invest your camera doesn't feature this automatism, a viable solution is to purchase an intervalometer (it's some kind of remote control): this device can be connected to your camera and will allow you to shoot time lapse sequences (stillno need to use your finger).

Once we have all the exposures that we deem necessary (not less than a hundred anyway) we will use them to obtain a film, by playing them back in fast sequence (you don't need a very expensive or complicated  software to do that, I use iMovie, for instance).

- I raccomend adding a soundtrack because even if the photos are very beautiful the final result might end up being a bit boring.

There are a lot of amazing time lapse films online: searche the web and check some of them out. For example this one, or this other one, both of them great. This is also an interesting project (basically the guy made a time lapse film of his own life, taking two pictures a day fot seventeen years.  Congrats on his perseverance!)

Than I have one that i made myself. You are not spared some of my work this time too. I actually already wrote about it a few posts ago (here, to be accurate). I did show you the pictures I took for the Mek Community Catalog and- if you were paying attention- you might remember that I wrote about having made a time lapse movie with the kids. The movie was published last spring in the iPad version of the catalog. Who doesn't have an iPad hasn't been able to watch it anywhere.

Yesterday I retrieved the whole sequence of photos, I choose a soundtrack and here is the final result. I set an interval of one shot every 5 seconds for one hour. The kids pretended to be photographers working on still life shots, including post-production activities, etc. It was not easy to coordinate them invisibly for a whole hour. I have to admit that at the beginning I was worried, but at the end they turned out to be great (much better than I could possibly expect). Pietro's finel breakdance moves were just the icing on the cake. Here you are! If you want to watch it in a higher definition you can check this link.