Portraits - Chiaroscuro
par Nicoletta Fornaro @nickyfornaro
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Chiaroscuro Portraits
"When you are trying to make a portrait of someone you know well, you have to forget and forget until what you see astonishes you. Indeed, at the heart of any portrait which is alive, there is registered an absolute surprise surrounded by close intimacy."
From the essay 'Jean Mohr: A Sketch for a Portrait in Understanding a Photograph by John Berger
These are a series of photographs from an ongoing personal project in portraiture.
Although my media is photography, the inspiration comes mainly from painting and the desire to re-invent classical themes through a contemporary eye.
The subject though, is never treated as an archetype, as I always wish to show the personality of the people I work with.
The subjects are not required to play a part, I ask them to be themselves, because I believe that reality and real people are so much more interesting than 'ideas'.
The ballerina is an actual dancer, the woman with red hair was expecting her baby and asked me to take some portraits of her but not the ones with a naked belly...and I focused on her eyes and her face, because I think that pregnant women just express an incredible happiness. Rachele wanted to feel beautiful but not in objectified way, thus we worked together to highlight her power and the fact that she is a (young) woman full of confidence that decides for herself.
Also, as a choice, my editing is very limited. I always try to get the best picture with the best light in camera, of course I do fix them in Lightroom and sometimes Photoshop but never ever change physical features.
This is true especially with regard to myself and my husband.
When I take pictures of us together or alone, I want to trace the signs of time passing by and the emotions we are experiencing. I can see in his eyes how he feels, and of each picture I remember the moment he was going through, sometimes happy sometimes sad.
As for self-portraits, I distinguish between two genres:
- everyday photos of me, looking into the camera. With these I want to register how my body and face are changing, my first wrinkles, my tired eyes. Due to family problems, we have had a difficult period in which I was not sleeping and developed dark circles and under eye bags, which were a real problem for me. So I decided to deal with it in a similar way of Roman Opalka, taking pictures of my face everyday at the same hour (I will soon upload that project and dedicate a specific page to it), an operation that has been helping me heal.
- photos in which I impersonate figures from the art world, figures that are always in tune with my personality and the life experiences I am going through. In this series you see me as a different version of Young Sick Bacchus, with sad eyes... all because of a terrible family loss.
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