Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Saturday, October 9, 2010

interview: samantha casolari






Your name and where you live?

Samantha Casolari / live in Brooklyn NY


Why photography? What brought you to it?

I am not quite sure why photography. I fell in love with it one day, looking at a picture and it felt so right and what surrounded me watched through lenses felt so right, that I was captured right away.


Your stream's driven by a strong fashion base. How has fashion impacted your work?

Fashion happened in my life almost by chance. I was asked to cover Milan men's fashion week in June, mostly backstage, and I approached it as a reportage. However the work that came out was a little bit different and I realized that I can mix reportage with a more creative/surreal way of representing reality without changing it or manipulating it. I have been experimenting quite a bit in the past year with light, film and lenses and for the first time I used those little experiments while shooting a story. With the same approach I shot the look book for a friend of mine this past summer, and I realized that it could easily be applied to a fashion story. That is how I came to shoot NY and Milan fashion week just now. These shoots were all amazing experiences and even if they were not real fashion stories they opened my mind towards new ways to shoot as well as new subjects to shoot. It is as if photography showed me an entire new world.


There has to be a root for every photographer. What inspires you to create such beautiful and nostalgic work?

As for inspiration, it comes from daydreaming and music. I have always been with my head over the clouds, all the time, watching my life like a long movie with different soundtracks, and I guess I translate that into images. I am not quite sure about the nostalgic, meaning where it comes from. I am a little bit of a nostalgic too...so I am sure it had to come out in my pictures at some point.

What equipment do you use?

I use a old Nikon FM10 and I just started using my dad's old Pentax ME Super. However for assignments given the tight deadlines you usually shoot digital...


Film or Digital? Why?

I prefer film to digital just because it portrays the world as I see it and reality as I perceive it.


Is photography something you would take throughout your life? Or is it considered a small hobby for now?


Well I have been working as professional photographer for the past three years and a half, so I would not consider photography a small hobby for me. And I can't conceive doing anything else at all.





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Monday, October 4, 2010