Workshop by FOTO D'ARTE Lab
A workshop, curated by Foto d'Arte Lab, dedicated to teaching the art of portrait photography and how it allows the photographer to discover something fundamental about people, showing us both what they have in common and what makes them unique. The meeting is aimed at people who are passionate about photography and anyone who is eager to learn how to take portraits and close-ups from scratch. Lights and camera will be provided by the Foto d'Arte Lab association. Those who wish, however, can shoot with their own photographic equipment, guided by the association's tutors.
The Workshop is part of the side events of the exhibition "The Sense of Places"
More info about the exhibition
It is called "Sense of Place" and is a photographic account of the territory and community of Figline and Incisa Valdarno.
The exhibition includes the display of shots taken ad hoc in Figline and Incisa Valdarno over the past year by the TerraProject collective (one of the most important and internationally awarded collectives), along with those on Figline signed (and already exhibited in the past) by two greats of photography, Paolo Monti (1980) and Gianni Berengo Gardin (2011), reproposed in a selection curated by the Circolo Fotografico Arno, which preserves them in the Municipal Historical Archives.
The exhibition will be open on Saturdays and Sundays from 10am-1pm and 3pm-7pm (closed Dec. 25 and Jan. 1).
The authors of the new shots: the TerraProject collective
TerraProject Photographers is a documentary photography collective founded in Florence in 2006 by Michele Borzoni, Simone Donati, Pietro Paolini and Rocco Rorandelli. One of the first photographic collectives to be born in our country, TerraProject soon became an important platform of comparison and promotion for its members, who over the years have also developed anoriginal methodology of "collective writing," with group projects defined by a refined stylistic uniformity. The authors have always focused their research on social and environmental issues, both globally and nationally. In Italy they have built over time an important archive of documentation of the territory, thanks to relevant public and private commissions. The collective's works are regularly published in the pages of major Italian and international magazines and have been exhibited in galleries, festivals and prestigious international museums, including Institut du Monde Arabe (Paris), MAXXI (Rome), Fondazione MAST (Bologna), MACRO (Rome), Benaki Museum (Athens), Palazzo Ducale (Genoa), UCCA Center for Contemporary Art (Beijing), Katzen Arts Center (Washington), National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne), Les Rencontres d'Arles (Arles), Cortona on the Move Festival (Cortona), Festival della Fotografia Etica (Lodi) and the European Parliament (Brussels).
TerraProject has published numerous monographic and collective books, and their works are held in important public and private collections. Members of the collective have received prestigious international awards , including the World Press Photo (2010 and 2012), Canon Prize (2010), Fund for Investigative Journalism (2011), Pesaresi Prize for Contemporary Photography (2013), Graziadei Prize (2014), Celeste Prize-Streamers (2016), Landskrona photobook dummy award (2018), and the Gabriele Basilico Prize (2020).
Side initiatives
There are many initiatives and in-depth moments related to the exhibition scheduled during the opening period. Starting with free guided tours for primary and secondary schools or groups of at least 10 people (info: cultura@comunefiv.it). The authors of the shots themselves, the four photographers of Terraproject, will lead two guided tours to tell firsthand about their work of documenting the territory and their methodological and stylistic choices (Saturday, Nov. 19 and Saturday, Dec. 10, 5 p.m., free of charge by reservation).
The Arno Photographic Circle will curate three evenings dedicated to the history of Figline and the Municipal Photographic Historical Archives (Saturday, Nov. 5 at 5 p.m. and Saturday, Dec. 17 at 5 p.m.), as well as an in-depth look at landscape photography (Saturday, Nov. 12 at 5 p.m.).
Also scheduled are two portrait workshops curated by Foto d'Arte Lab to learn, using a camera (one's own or borrowed, for the occasion, from association members) or a smartphone, how to make a photographic portrait, from the first approach with the protagonist of the shot to the printing stage (Saturday, Nov. 26 and Saturday, Dec. 3, 5 p.m.). The exhibition will conclude, on the finissage day (Saturday, Jan. 14, 5 p.m.) with a conference.