Earlier this year, after some light equipment purchase, broncolor France representative kindly asked if we were interested to meet Mr. Bron for an informal discussion about their products and our customer experience.
So, when a few weeks later we had the chance to be all in Paris, we arranged a meeting in our studio. We were amazed by the care they have of their customer, and Mr. Bron was very keen to hear about our technical involvement and scientific approach on lighting and shooting gear. Following our meeting, we were given the chance to write about our experience as photographers.
“Instant Moisture Glow”, 2015 – YSL Beauty
Working on both concept and art direction gives us a much larger creativity freedom.
Here we played on “wrapping” to tease the product while eventually revealing its content; a resonance of the ribbon silky texture with the cream smoothness, infused with a small lure of the YSL fashion signature.
Lighting: Grafit A4 RFS, Picolite lamps, Striplite lamps, custom diffusers
When we moved from Italy to Paris in 2006, we were extensively pondering and experimenting on our photographic skill and style. Even though in the beginning still-life photography was not our main focus, our interest smoothly grew as we found it perfectly suited for our personalities. Both issued from different educational and professional experiences, we felt the need to be reassured by technique in the first place.
However we quickly realised that we had to self-discipline ourselves to avoid to make “the Technique” the subject of our pictures. That’s why it is so important for us to work with the most flexible and reliable gear while always trying to have an intellectual approach to create as much as possible meaningful images.
Since the beginning of our career we’ve mainly been using broncolor power packs with Picolite heads and an increasing number of different other effect lamps and attachments, such as the Boxlites or the Striplites. As a camera, we primarily shoot with an Arca-Swiss M- Monolit view camera, that gives us high freedom of technical movements and guides our shootings towards a more reflective approach.
“The path of smiling”, 2010 – Shiseido
In this set of photos, we closely worked with Shiseido AD discussing how to stage their concept while keeping a minimalist representation proper to the brand identity by meticulous care for each single styling, set design and lighting detail.
Lighting: Grafit A2RFS, Picolite lamps, Pico Fresnel attachments, custom diffusers
Working in a studio allows us to control everything: subject, lighting, staging, point of view; we can fully accomplish and refine in every subtle detail an idea we are pre-visualising in our heads. It is a contemplative approach that permits to go further when observing something; to find a beautiful and meaningful detail even from a quite unusual starting point such as the way some clay dries on a perfume bottle. We are constantly looking for aspects to reveal and ways to show our findings to the viewer eyes.
“Muddy artefacts”, 2018 – Personal research
We’ve always been fascinated by the interaction between natural elements and man-made objects, and not just from an aesthetic perspective. For us, it is like witnessing Nature process of re-appropriation of something torn from her.
Lighting: Scoro S 3200 WiFi, Boxlite 40, Pulso G lamps, custom diffusers
“Muddy artefacts”, 2018 – Personal research
We’ve always been fascinated by the interaction between natural elements and man-made objects, and not just from an aesthetic perspective. For us, it is like witnessing Nature process of re-appropriation of something torn from her.
Lighting: Scoro S 3200 WiFi, Boxlite 40, Pulso G lamps, custom diffusers
About Andrea & Valentina
They are totally mad for details, how a fabric falls, how it changes when in a particular light or shadow and the beauty it can create when managed in a particular way. Every subject is potentially interesting and beautiful, since all possible meaning is not an intrinsic characteristic of the subject, but the result of its interaction with the gaze of the viewer.
”Today, knowledge is everywhere, easily accessible and probably free. Things are changing faster than we can even track and new brilliant yet simple ideas are re-shaping our world in every domain. As in Nature, accidents, incongruousness and naivety become new sources of evolution. If properly managed, chasing personal and unconstrained solutions for common problems is often what leads to innovation.”
https://www.andrea-valentina.com/
