Great to go back to school

The exhibition “Barcelona in Sepia Toning” – 20 pictures by Stefano Buonamici is opening on April 27 at 11AM in the Liceo Artistico di Porta Romana in Florence as part of the Looking for Art Festival.

I’m very glad, because finally returning back home, in fact this school has been my second home for 5 years, from 1975 until 1980, when I was a young student of arts in Florence.

I would like to thank for sponsoring:

Sissi Abbondanza, Maribel Alonso Soria, Javier Andrade Cordoba, Carlo Andreoli, Michele Bajona, Marco Barlocci, Quim Batlle, Xavier Beltran, Federica Biondi, Alessandro Borscia, Ginevra Caratú, Emanuela Carmenati, Augusto Casciani, Paolo Ciardella, Lorenzo Coppola, Alessio Cucin, Andrea De Lotto, Michela De Rosa, Cristina Esclapez, Andrea Ferraris, Dario Ferraro, Lorenzo Fontanelli, Heike Fickel, Simone Frasca, Helen Giovannello, Leandro Giribaldi, Annalisa Giogoli, Simona Giorgi, Mariella Gnetoli, Tomas Gonzales, Marco Greco, Luca Guastella, Laura Iachetta, David Junyent, Heather Kanost, Guillermo Klein, Federico Laudisa, Maria Elisabetta Longone, Rita Lugli, Daniela Maldini, Maria Marchese, Romina Martin, Francis Mateo, Ida Mauro, Carlo Meconi, Guido Monaci, Germano Natali, Carme Ocaña, Giulia Parisi, Juan Antonio Pérez, Riccardo Piattelli, Guido Ramellini, Luana Ranallo, Alfredo Rossi, Massimiliano Rumignani, Joan-Albert Serra, Sandra Sferragatta, Irene Signorelli, Fabiola Ungredda, Versilia Danza, VM Laboratorio Fotográfico en Barcelona, Elena Volpi.

Download the PDF “Barcelona en Tono Sepia”

Tutti Pazzi per la Frutta

InvitoWeb_RM

Photo contest for children and their families, in Rome from October 7th to November 7th 2013.

The jury selected the best 100 images. As a jury’s director it was a pleasure to take part of it.

Now the pictures are shown in fantastic EATALY Rome. Vernissage: Monday October 7th.

Teaching Cliché Verre

Cliché Verre is a combination of art and photography. In brief, it is a method of either etching, painting or drawing on a transparent surface, such as glass, thin paper or film and printing the resulting image on a light sensitive paper in a photographic darkroom. It is a process first practiced by a number of French painters during the early 19th century. The French landscape painter Camille Corot was the best known of these. Some contemporary artists have developed techniques for achieving a variety of line, tone, texture and color by experimenting with film, frosted Mylar, paint and inks and a wide assortment of tools for painting, etching, scratching, rubbing and daubing. Cliché Verre is French. Cliché is a printing term: a printing plate cast from movable type; while verre means glass. Cliché Verre was one of the earliest forms of reproducing images before the advent of the camera. (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).

So, the pictures illustrate the students of the University of Arts in Florence, during a workshop under the guide of the professor Maria Fabiola Ungredda, and assisted by the photographer Alessandro Botticelli and myself. It was a great experience for the students to go inside to the dark room at the age of digital photography. I enjoyed it!

My own Country

The beginning of a nice day in Spring, in the Chianti hills in Tuscany, not far from Florence.

If you would like to see more pictures, please visit the Organic Tuscany cooking classes web site. Organic Tuscany offers organic cooking classes in Il Paluffo, a 15th century historical building which has been beautifully restored respecting tradition with a touch of Italian design. There are also beautiful walks in the area, and plenty of time to relax.

Iride Fontana: just beauty, no Photoshop

Iride Fontana

Iride came third in the Miss Italia in the World 2011 beauty contest

Iride Fontana is a 21 year old woman from Barcelona, Spain. She is just starting a career in modeling and acting. This portrait is not retouched. I personally don’t like to use Photoshop for retouching portraits and I want to take a stand against extreme Photoshop retouching in advertisements and on the covers of magazines.

Today’s unrealistic idea of what beauty is means that young girls are under even more pressure now than they were a couple of years ago. Airbrushing means that adverts contain completely unattainable and perfect images that no one can live up to in real life. We need to help protect our younger generations from these pressures and we need to make a start by banning airbrushing in adverts aimed at them. I also come from a school of thought that finds beauty in real things. I think imperfection is beautiful.

Let’s have a look at the Scientific Evidence: The Impact of Media Images on Body Image and Behaviours

and please, let me know your opinion about it, Thanks

 

Francesco Pantaleone’s place in Palermo


FRANCESCO PANTALEONE, a contemporary art dealer, opened the Francesco Pantaleone Contemporary Art Gallery in his place in the Vucciria, a neighborhood in Palermo. The apartment is on the top floor of a 16th-century palazzo that once belonged to the prince of Ramacca.

I was very happy to come back to Palermo and to meet Francesco. Please, see the slideshow on The New York Times