ANDREA PISTOLESI

Summer Workshops • August  12-18, 2023

Of all the changes and innovations in photography in recent years, the most prominent are certainly those that relate to travel photography.

Until a few years ago this was a field reserved for great travellers, who worked on commission and were able to stay on location for as long as it took – dedicating a great deal of time to planning the trip and the photos that would be taken. Those days are gone.

The world has become smaller and more homogeneous thanks to easier travel and globalization, rendering this quest for the exotic futile and out-of-touch.

Photography, particularly digital photography, can be created with automatic cameras that leave little room for technical error. This allows a vast number of travellers to take their own pictures without having any contact with a developer or printer.

On top of which, the culture surrounding photography is now all about immediate sharing. Once we endured boring evenings staring at a projector – and the message was ‘Look where I’ve been!’ Now we have social networks that deliver photos in real time, as if to say: Look where I am right now!

Fortunately, not everyone’s like that. People do still travel for other reasons: out of curiosity, to learn, to know themselves. So photography is no longer simply a source of postcards. It is our way of interpreting the world, of understanding through images that we create and carry home…and maybe even print!

our photographs become stories…

This workshop aims to re-evaluate the term “Travel Photography”

The first order of business is understanding what place photographic service has today: the style, content, ideas and definitions of simple and complex projects. And, rather importantly, travel planning, photo planning, methodologies for organization once you have arrived on location. To sum it up: true photographic work.

During the week we will also dedicate time to methods of presentation and the distribution of images, currently something entrusted to the web.

We will look at creating and presenting a first portfolio, how to edit a photographic service whether it be for publication, a contest, an editor or for personal use.
all, focus and drive: that is our objective.

Really, this is an opportunity to look deep within ourselves, to understand how much of our life we want to dedicate to this passion, in which direction to go to avoid frustrating distractions and how to be sure, in the end that we can be proud of our work.

During the workshop, keeping Villa Lina as our base, we will have the chance to explore the area surrounding us, called Tuscia, and its villages, an also some of the Etruscan areas in Tuscany.

VENUE – Villa Lina  Italy

LODGING & MEALS  see info on travel workshop

BIOGRAPHY

Born in Florence in 1957, Andrea Pistolesi studied geography at the local university. He still lives there, a place he considers more of an inspiration than a city. As an evolution of his incessant desire to travel Andrea became a photo reporter, specializing in human and environmental documentation. Today he is always working for Italian and international magazines, such as: Islands, Travel & Leisure, Geo, Departures, Hemispheres, Gulliver, Gente Viaggi, Bell’Italia, Bell’Europa, Airone, Viajar, Rutas del Mundo and many others. His volumes on exotic destinations (Indonesia, New Zealand, Morocco, South Africa, Buddhist Asia) have been published, along with images of major European tourist destinations; he is the only photographic author for the Casa Editrice Bonechi in the United States and is currently creating a series about the major religions of the world for Touring Club Italiano. Andrea has become known for his research in the use of light in his compositions, making them deeply personal images. Every year he holds workshops on the profession of the reporter and the use of digital technology. A step towards artistic photography was a natural evolution in his professional development. He has had solo shows in Italy and abroad. He participated in the VII Biennial of Photography in Turin and received first prize in Italy in 1998 for the Fuji European Press Award. He has taken reportage images for advertising as well, including Iveco calendars. Recently he has been interested in and developed his use of digital technology, a medium he defines as “ the rebirth of camera oscura for color photography.”
www.pistolesiphoto.com

PRACTICAL INFO