mauriziodinassau

The Mask

Model: Lucilla B.
MUA: Laura B.
Ass: Irene C.

Model: Lucilla B.
MUA: Laura B.
Ass: Irene C.

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NIKON D90

Aperture f/16 ISO 200 Shutter 1/90 Focal Length 350/10

upload_date

Sep, 2015

Views

537

Likes

+50

Awards

Top Shot Award 21

Contest Finalist in Portrait Galore Photo Contest

Staff Winter Selection 2015

Absolute Masterpiece

Superb Composition

Outstanding Creativity

Top Choice

Peer Award

Magnificent Capture

Emotions

Impressed

Top Ranks

Top 30 rank week 1

Top 10 rank

Top 10 rank week 1

Top 10 rank

Top 10 rank week 1

Top 10 rank

Top 10 rank week 1

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Same photographer See all Behind The Lens

A set with Lucilla: intimacy and poetry.

A manipulation made with 0C Creative Commons License stocks. First attempt, what do you think? Tips to improve? Thanks!!! :)

Shot taken in a village in the region of Keles, Turkey. A turkish minister was inside for our group of tourists and the people from the village were a

Landscape from Campania, Italy

Shot in a foggy day

Shot taken in a village in the region of Keles, Turkey. This boy, with many others, kept follow me and the others with great joy and curiosity for our

Shot taken in a village in the region of Keles, Turkey. This woman was sitting outside her home, with her peaceful look!

Lucilla B
A portrait about intimacy and beauty

And intense emotive portrait, the best sight. A story of illness.

A picture from my last shoot with Olga, a great model from Warsaw :)

Dock in Stockholm, shot with Meizu M2 Note

Model: Giuliana M.C.
MUA: Stefania Di Costanzo
Shot in an abandoned hotel

Behind The Lens

Location

The photo was taken in my studio in Portici (Naples, Italy)

Time

I shot this picture at around 9 PM, just after 20 minutes we started shooting. I set up the shooting in the evening and I was quite tired: I kept making my speedlight fall to the floor!

Lighting

When I shoot portraits in studio, I usually use a very intense and dramatic lighting with a dark background. With this kind of lighting, my models seem to show their weakness and their intimacy to the viewer. To make this picture, I positioned one speedlight in an octabox to the left side of the model in a position that avoided a strong catchlight. In this way I obtained a dramatic picture with dead eyes, something that matches well with the mood of the shot. The white collar worked as a fill-light.

Equipment

I used an old (but still rockin!) Nikon D90 with a Nikkor 18-105 f.3.5-5.6 / settings were: 35mm at 1/90th f16. I love this setup to shoot in studio: I'm attached to this camera, I also own a Nikon D700 and a Panasonic G7, but I love the sharpness of this lens coupled with the D90. To light the subject, I used a tethered Nikon SB-25 (yes, I like old stuff!) with an octabox.

Inspiration

I was looking for an intense, dark moody picture. I wanted the viewer to stop, stare into the eyes of the model and find... nothing. In this case, my aim was to make the viewer project his feelings into Lucilla's eyes, letting the mood of the shot inspire a storm of emotions. The "black mask", a stereotypical way to hide a person's identity, helps the spectator erasing the model's personality and project his own. Moreover, the collar causes a sense of alienation. I must thank Laura and Irene for their help in make-up and styling.

Editing

In this shot, post-processing is crucial: I painted over the skin to make the picture look even more unnatural and dark. Everything reminds of a living old painting.

In my camera bag

In studio I mainly use my Nikon D90 with the Nikkor 18-105 f3.5/5.6. I found I don't need anything more than that when shooting with strobes! When shooting outside or in difficult light conditions, I use a Nikon D700 with a 50mm 1.8, a Nikkor 80-200 f2.8, a Nikkor 28-70 and a Tokina 12-24. I have recently bought a Panasonic G7 with a 12-42 f3.5/5.6 which seems to be nice when traveling - still need to put it to the test!

Feedback

If you look at my pictures, you will mainly see in-studio portraits. I don’t know if I suffer of some kind of mania of grandeur, but I like shooting in studio because I DO LOVE manipulating light and making light fall exactly how I want on my subjects. And yes – I feel VERY GOOD when I can play freely with my (very) patient models. Of course, photography is ALL ABOUT LIGHTING. Lighting tells you if you have to be happy, to be tense, to be sad or to be relaxed; lighting is what let you convey the meaning and the mood of your photo. This is what makes a good portrait to me. When I look to a portrait, I don’t only want to see joy, cheerfulness, perfection, fierceness: I want to give a look inside the soul of my subjects through their eyes, their expression, how they move, how they talk, how they relate to me. I like taking all this and making it explicit. HOW? Posing and yes - LIGHTING! In this case, we cannot really see Lucilla's feelings: we need to project ours. This makes the image even more powerful, because it build the strongest connection possible - a connection with your own feelings. My advice then is to communicate a feeling (or an absence of feelings) through lighting and expression, keeping your setup simple. Especially in lighting, "less is more": most of the time I only use one lightsource. Moreover, having a great model and collaborators as I had for this shooting, is a precious and essential "plus"!

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mauriziodinassau

mauriziodinassau

The Mask

Model: Lucilla B. MUA: Laura B. Ass: Irene C.

Behind The Lens

See more amazing photos, follow mauriziodinassau

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Model: Lucilla B.
MUA: Laura B.
Ass: Irene C.

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