Talking with Luca Trombino
Hey folks! It’s the first Tuesday of the month…you know…it’s time for a brand new Inside the Photo.
Today my guest is a friend and fellow Italian photographer. Let’s get to know him a little more
I am an amateur photographer from Milan (Northern Italy), my passion was born in high school, at the time of film cameras. I started with travel, landscape and nature photography, then, after a difficult and very slow transition to digital, I found myself trying out portraiture, which has become my main focus for the last nine years. For portraits I prefer to work with artificial light (mainly flash) either in the studio (as the only light source) or on location or outdoors (balancing ambient light with artificial light).
Luca’s images are always crisp, full of character and intense. If you look at his profiles, which I’ll copy as usual at the end of the post, you will see he mainly shoots with Martina who is also a friend. They show an incredible connection, and Luca can always capture her showing that special feeling.
© Luca Trombino
During the Christmas season, the city of Lausanne (Switzerland) is filled with music, lights and colours. During this period, the lights of the Cathedral’s bell tower are also switched on, creating a luminous symbol that is clearly visible throughout the city, thanks also to the Cathedral’s own elevated position.
In December 2018, I was in Lausanne on business and asked Martina to join me for a weekend of photography. In the days leading up to her arrival, I went scouting for various locations, including one that would be suitable to represent the Cathedral’s bell tower as a background element for a nighttime environmental portrait photograph. I found this location on the Escalier du Marché, a covered staircase that connects the Cathedral to the Market Square.
Martina and I chose the outfit together: an elegant black dress and shoes to evoke an evening out, a pale coat to evoke the winter season and to separate Martina from the dark background, and finally two sparkling details, the stockings and the necklace, to create points of light.
I decided to use only street lighting so that the subject would not be out of balance with its surroundings, and Martina was very good at choosing poses that would get the maximum amount of light from the street lamp in the top right-hand corner. In fact, the shooting position (I was lying on the steps of the staircase at the bottom) emphasised the pose even more.
One last practical note: it was very cold and Martina’s dress was very light. So Martina stayed in her closed coat with a big scarf around her neck in the exact position where she would pose, I would lie down on the stairs, compose the photo and adjust the parameters in the camera; only then would Martina take off the scarf, open her coat, pose and I would focus and take a quick burst of photos. All this while waiting for a moment when no one was passing on the stairs
Luca is with no doubt an amazing portrait photographer and I highly recommend you check out his work.
Vero
Instagram (iPhone shots here)
Threads
Thank you so much, Luca, for sharing this image with us!
Take care and talk soon!