4 thoughts on “238/365 – “Alien(ation)” nr.26”

  1. Hello there Luca!

    Maybe you remember me from your Nex-7 blog (I’ve commented your pictures couple of times). I’ve been following your work ever sense (and every day). Since I purchased my first own camera (Nex-5N) a year ago, I got bitten by the photo bug and took over 26000 pictures at first year. Throughout a year your blogs (first Nex-7 and then this) have giving me *a lot* of inspiration to develop my own eye for photography. Thanks to you, I sailed away from the land of usual point-shoot snapshots and found the ‘world of photography’. Of course there is much to learn, but I feel I’ve landed to a place which speak to my need of aesthetics even if I’m just a regular guy with a camera. Through cameras aperture hole one can see uniqueness of life much differently than in a regular ‘pay-your-bills-life’. Thank you for the inspiration you’ve given me.

    Just for you, I collected some of my pictures here: http://www.pixelem.fi/20000+/index2.html

    Of course not as nice as yours, but then again I’m not a professional photographer nor ‘Luca Rossini’. You can maybe recognize some influences (and even concepts) I’ve taken from you, but I think there are also shots that somehow reconstructed in my mind’s eye before I shot them – these, I think, contain at least something of how I see things.

    Since your blogs have been so useful to me, I’ve decided to give something back. Starting from today I’ll be writing small reviews of your themes 1 per day. I hope you will find these entertaining and I also hope they will encourage others to comment too. Here is the first review.

    THEME 1: MYSELF
    I really like the fact that you could squeeze a quite interesting images from a single studio-composition (first 9 pictures) and from theme that feels at first glance pretty tight. My favorites are 1+2, 5 and 7. I think you’ve really added something to these pictures with your writings and your writings definitely gave more depth to the images (please do continue this). I felt you are giving your best right at the start. Pictures of your equipment and stuff didn’t impress me as much and I thought that you had hard time sustain the flow of great ideas because first 9 pictures were so good. I like your work a lot, but I also find it a relief to see that even you cannot keep breaking new ground all the time. When you returned to people-photography I though people-pictures work so much better than equipment and stuff (even if I understood your need to describe your life routines). Really love the ending picture (28).

    Why I liked this theme? I liked it because it showed me how you can create a lot of pictures from a single theme that would at first glance seem too restricted. I also liked that you created your themes to be something else than the usual ‘portrait’, ‘landscape’, ‘street photography’, ‘macro’ and other stuff which you find from almost every photography book and which organize the imagination of most of the usual photographers. Great job!!

    1. Hi Toni,

      I’m sorry it took me so long to answer to your beautiful reviews, but as you may know it has been a hard week on me, with my old dog suddenly dying of an unknown disease and me coping with the loss… She has been with me for the last fifteen years, since the very first day of my University, through all my (major) girlfriends, till the last one, my marriage, my traveling around the world, my daughter, my decision to change job and life, so basically through all the really important steps of my life. She’s been the best companion I could hope for and I’ve been caressing her till she breathed her last.

      Now I have to say that I am really enjoying your reviews! Especially your critics, it’s always nice to have some sincere ones, not the angry ones from trolls I usually get every time I get too much visibility… 😉
      So please, feel free to keep on going!
      cheers
      luca

  2. Ok, here comes second review. I’ll leave it here, because you haven’t put up new picture yet (I hope you’re okay).

    THEME 2: HABEMUS PAPAM
    I must say this is one of your best themes (of all you’ve shoot so far). To me, most of this themes pictures look like classics and I think it’s because of b&w combined to set up where you shoot lot of crowds. This visual style borrows its look from our mutually shared cultural memory which usually comes to us in form of historical documents with a black and white material. If you chose this look on purpose then it’s even better actualized.

    Based on a historical event is what I think gives this theme certain weight which would be hard to achieve without the happening. I also think this historical event gives this theme a ‘natural meaning’ and it doesn’t need to justify itself as much as other of your themes. There are many pictures where you have good eye for cultural details (7,9,19,25 for example) and others where you’ve come up with perfect composition (1, 6, 10, 16, 18, 26, 31 for example). On a whole, I sense a certain social distance between the crowd and the new pope, which makes this theme a somewhat melancholic. There is a lot of raised hope and wishes to fulfill, but the story never comes to a ‘happy end’. Instead the normal social order is restored much in the same way as after rock concerts, people back their stuff and head back to home because it’s early morning next day and deadlines are waiting at work.

    Why I liked this theme? All in all I think this theme shows the great graphical power of the black and white pictures and you combine it perfectly with weight of the historical event. You don’t get too many changes to make something like this and I think you’ve really outdone yourself here, great job!!

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