Light study. (Patreon)

I went to Milano on Sunday, but not to shoot with the new model (because she cancelled our appointment and went back to her country before planned), but to see the Robert Mappletorphe exhibition, on the very last day.I enjoyed looking back at the film era photography and reminding when I was doing it myself, starting between 2 to 3 years after the death of Mapplethorphe himself.It has been instructive to learn how he used to work from the original prints, mostly in black and white, all from medium format film shot with a Hasselblad 500C.And I am thankful for having my Leica M10 Monochrom now, because it is the only camera that ever produced a BW really similar to what I was looking at in this exhibition or what I was doing myself at the time.But what really interested me the most, was to see how it used to work.His life might have been wild and unconventional in many ways, but his photographic technique was very professional.None of the bokeh crap we are currently used to in so called artistic photography, but medium apertures for maximum quality and good depth of field.Mostly studio shots with boring, academic and "flat" light schemes, capable of burning out highlight when the age of the woman model required it.I also shot some reminders of these light schemes with my smartphone that I'm posting as bonus photos today, where you can clearly see the light sources reflected on the model's eyes.Banks, umbrellas, reflectors, professional studio equipments usually used also for beauty and commercial work.Not the kind of work I'm doing in the #BramleyApple Project, which is more on the casual side of nudes, but instructive nevertheless!And the last photo in this sequence was particularly interesting for me because it reminded me how I was doing the burning in the darkroom, by moving a piece of paper in front of the print paper to stop the light from the enlarger and make the background darker.It was a gentler way to separate the subject from the background, compared with the contemporary clinical identification of the subject from Lightroom, that leave none of the halos you can spot on this man's forehead.

Today's photo of Hilary, from December 2018, is an example of how I have to work: quick, in mostly unfavorable light conditions, and unpredictable locations.During this first shooting with Hilary, the conditions were particularly severe and, not only the light was of bad quality, but was also very low, so the final picture is not very good, and yet the beauty of the model, and the casual nature of the situation, are making the final product ultimately enjoyable.

Maybe if I was required to shoot Isabella Rossellini or some famous people like Mappletorphe was doing, I would feel compelled to work in a studio that can guarantee the professional output required.Thankfully, I'm not required to reach those standards, so I can play with my photography as much as I want, and experiment all the time.I have some responsibility myself, mostly towards my models, and my Patrons, and the money I'm investing on this hobby, but it is nothing compared with the stakes involved in the life this American photographer was involved with.I'll keep on doing my stuff, but this exhibition was very instructive nevertheless, and I have learned a thing or two from this Master... or more!And some of these things I might implement in my future photography.

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