Hand in Hand
Many times people told me I love PDA, Public Display of Affections, and it is absolutely true. I love when two people show their emotions, show something that in this British society is seen as something better done in private. Many times I have the sentence "Get a Room" and one time it was told to me as well. From this perspective I am very much open minded, I have no issues with people displaying their affection in public. Honestly my limit is well far away from what here can be considered "standard".
During the London Pride I have seen many PDA, but I did not captured as many as I would have loved to. This, though, is one of them, and one that hit me a lot. The simplicity, the naturalness of this gesture is magical.
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Uploaded on Jul 9, 2009
7 comments
Big glasses, big smile
Yesterday I have received an email from a person that recognized herself in one of my photos of last year London Pride. The email was short, but its contents hit me quite a lot: she was just saying thank you for having spent good words on her. I did not (or do not) know her personally, I know nothing about her, nevertheless I saw her in the context of the London Pride. I did not reserve her a special treatment, just the usual thoughts of equality and rights.
These are things that make me smile, make me going on writing other stuff. One reader, just one, is enough.
Thanks for the smiles, thanks for being my subjects, thanks for giving me the possibility to express what I see, what I feel through my photos of you, whoever you have been, you are or you will be.
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Uploaded on Jul 8, 2009
12 comments
Hard Light, Soft Light and the Misconception of the Magical Diffusers...
When I decided to understand lighting I watched many videos online, trying to get every bit of information possible. Later I would have tried to apply every lessons in practice, but one thing that hit me was a big misconception when learning lighting with small hot shoe flashes: the hardness and softness of light. Let me clarify it for those who are not familiar with it: the softness of the light is determined by the dimension of the light perceived by the subject; the bigger the light source appear, the softer the light will be. The softer the light, the less defined the shadows will be, the gentler the features of your subject will appear.
We are talking about how big the light appears. I would like to underline two keywords here: Big and Appear. To fully understand this take a piece of paper, an A4 sheet for example, and hang it on a wall so you can see its surface. Now walk few meters away. The sheet of paper looks of certain dimension, right? Now, without losing eye contact with the piece of paper hanged on the wall, walk towards it and stop when the paper is just one meter from you. How big the sheet of paper seems to be in comparison with everything else? It seems bigger right? Now move even closer, until the same sheet of paper is few inches from your face. How big the same A4 appears to your eyes from there? Isn't it huge? Now imagine to have an A2 (4 times bigger bigger) piece of paper. It is bigger, but still when you move closer it seems bigger than when you are far away.
So, as you can see the perception of the size of an object depends upon its real size and upon the distance from it. (From a plane a truck seems almost a toy, but at a close distance you would not play with it, right?)
Now you need to understand that these two "variables" (size of the source of light and distance from the subject) are easily manageable. You can make the light physically bigger using an umbrella or a softbox or you can make your subject perceive the light bigger simply moving that softbox inches from their eyes.
In this image I have decided to keep the light small. I wanted to have a very strong light to create a well defined shadow on the background. I wanted a strong contrast between the light and the dark. So I wanted the subject to perceive the light as small and so I hide a small hot shoe flash in front of her without any light modifier (softbox, umbrella, etc...).
Small light source = hard light = strong, well defined shadows
Now the misconception: light diffuser. I have seen so many photographer using those small simil-tupperware piece of white plastic in front of their hot shoe flash. They think that using those magical plasticky things their subject will be lit by a gentle diffused light. WRONG. This is a misconception. Think about it: does that little piece of plastic modify the perceived size of the light? No!
So what those diffusers do? They simply divert the light coming from your hot shoe flash. The light is sent not only forward, but part of it is "diffused" to the top, right, bottom and left of the flash. Instead of having a direct beam of light, the diffuser helps in sending the light all over around you. Does this makes the light softer? NO! Can this be used in certain situation to attenuate the hardness of the light coming out from a small hot shoe flash? Yes. Imagine to be in a room with white walls. Without using those diffusers the light is a beam that hits your subject directly. The source of the light is very small, so the shadows will be hard. But imagine to have one of those diffusers on your flash, a diffuser that spills a little bit of light all over. Well, some of that light spilled all over will be reflected by the walls and ceiling, and they will become huge light sources. The idea is that the direct light can be "softened" by the light coming from the reflection of the spilled light on the walls. Obviously the reflected light will not be as powerful as the main beam that is causing the well defined shadows.
Summarizing you can say that in some environment the use of those small diffusers on your hot shoe flash might help a little.
So why people are using the diffuser when they take photos outside. Where do they think the light will bounce? In the stars?
MISCONCEPTION: a diffuser will not make the light softer. In certain circumstances will ease the light, but just a little.
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Uploaded on Jul 7, 2009
10 comments
The fairy and the woman in pink!
The other days I have seen some flames coming out from a thread on one of my photos posted on reddit. From one side I have read about people not understanding the pride of being gay, from another some gays had written about the excesses of the protest and the self-reclusion attitude this can bring. I personally think that the reality is that every repression, moral or physical, sooner or later is going to explode, showing the extreme. Moreover I would like to say that I personally think that from a protest, the London Pride is a big party, a moment to be happy and go around without veils. There have been people moaning that the Pride gives a wrong vision of the gay community, but I feel that the photograph that it creates is not the day-to-day routine, but just a moment to cheer together.
I am sure that in some years from today the Pride will not be there with us. This is a hope, for the simple reason that I would like to see equal rights and respect: this would make the pride useless.
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Uploaded on Jul 6, 2009
13 comments
Why do they need Pride
If you are one of those who asked what they have to be proud of, you probably have never heard about homophobia. You probably never lived being treated as a second class citizen, you have never felt unprotected by your own government. What if you had to be judged day after day for your preferences? Wouldn't you like to go on the street, having fun telling everyone: "I am what I am and I am proud of it!"
I would. Big time.
If I had to be labelled because I love photography, treated differently in the daily routine, I would love to walk out with fellow photographers shouting my right to chose who I am. Wouldn't you?
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Uploaded on Jul 5, 2009
15 comments
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