Film, Italy and Me

How it all started….I grew up in Wales, had an inspiring art teacher, a dark room for developing film and went to Italy for the first time at 15 and ‘saw the light’. That Mediterranean light which the ancient Greeks were so fascinated by and contributed so much of the advanced learning, appreciation of the arts and their day to day life by. I remember walking through the streets of San Gimignano and seeing this red sports car parked below me from a terrace. I knew the shape of the steep streets and walls, the birds-eye view I had of the car and that it was red against the sandstone yellow and bright clean light would look amazing as a photograph…..It was my first artistic vision and directed photograph….The image came out well (considering I was shooting on an SLR Olympus film camera which was entirely manual in terms of setting and focusing and I didn’t have a remote exposure meter I was literally shooting in the dark). It was the hard way to learn, but it was perhaps also the best.

So, whilst the photograph of that red sports car in Italy is somewhere in my childhood home attic, it is still in my memory and the reason I continued to pursue photography and also the reason I learnt and also remain a committed champion to FILM photography! There really is nothing better (when the light is right).

This felt full circle - coming back to Tuscany, San Galgano Abbey in Italy to photograph this beautiful wedding. More coming soon.

San Galgano Abbey wedding, Tuscany, Italy (shot on film).