Blog - Luigi Barbano Photography

The art of photography since 1994

Feb 16

by Luigi Barbano in BlogUpdates, ethic, meditations, Uncategorized 0 comments tags: contests, digital elborations, ethic, photography, retouch, Saad

Ethic and Photographers

Definition of ethic, from the Merriam-Webster 1 ethics plural in form but singular or plural in construction : the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation 2a : a set of moral principles : a theory or system of moral values b ethics plural in form but singular or plural in construction : the principles of conduct governing an individual or a group professional ethics c : a guiding philosophy d : a consciousness of moral importance forge a conservation ethic 3 ethics plural : a set of moral issues or aspects (such as rightness) debated the ethics of human cloning One of the latest news in the photographic world is the Australian Photographer Saad losing her prizes because in her composition she used images produced by other photographers. Not only, but even without the permission of the original creators.In a previous post I already talked about the fact that personally I do not consider photography what in reality are digital illustration, and is not the point of this post. Lately we have seen a long list of photographers that in some way cheated or at least stretched the rules a little too much. Many contests […]

Feb 13

by Luigi Barbano in BlogUpdates, CaptureOne, ethic, Fujifilm, Uncategorized 0 comments tags: house for sale, italy, photography, piedmont

Contests, editing, advertising and trust

Few days ago it was snowing in my little town in the Italian region of Piemonte. It was quite beautiful and I took some pictures from the balcony. My reason was not just to have some photographic fun but also to create some images to promote the sale of my house. I posted this image on FaceBook and a friend commented: “if he had a red umbrella that would be a competition print possibly loan collection!” I’m sure it was a compliment and a way to stimulate me in a moment I’m getting far away from photographic competitions and some associations. But this made me think. Why do we have to modify every image with a contest or likes in our mind? I like this picture because it’s real. It was not snowing anymore so no need for an umbrella, eventually why red when the most common umbrellas here are the cheap interchangeable black ones?This is not a contest image that will catch the attention of a judge in 3 seconds on a screen, but I do not care, it is an honest one. Part of my idea is to show how beautiful is the view from this house. I […]

Dec 23

by Luigi Barbano in BlogUpdates, Film photography, meditations, Uncategorized 4 comments tags: Baby it's cold outside, Christmas, Christmas wishes, joy, New Year, photography, reality, Rudolph, Snowflake

Merry Christmas 2018

I heard a noise outside the door, I walked to it, opened the door and there was the newspaper, confused I started to read it… (Click on the image to open a large version) …I woke up sweating from the nightmare, I was sitting on my couch and I immersed myself in my beloved reality. Some years the Christmas reality is happier than the others, this year for me some sadness is in the air filling everything with the emptiness left by the people I loved and are no more with me. But still all is real and I will never change it with a fake safe zone. I love reality because I know I can rationally deal with it and I can follow some little Christmas rituals, as setup a family traditional stone carved Nativity, to still feel the presence of the persons who gave me my life and helped me to become who I’m today. Christmas is the moment to forget the sadness and get ready to reborn being in charge of our own life. It is the moment to find the joy in everything around us and start planning the future with the blessing […]

Nov 22

by Luigi Barbano in BlogUpdates, Fujifilm, meditations, Uncategorized 0 comments tags: Barbano, blessings, Fuji, Luigi Barbano, photgraphy, thanksgiving, typewriter

Thanksgiving 2018

Thanksgiving, a holiday I learned to celebrate. Thanksgiving is not an Italian tradition so I grew up without it. Thanksgiving is one of my preferred holidays. Every year, also when I’m in Italy, I celebrate it. I dedicate a day to think about the blessings I had in my life, I try to quit my complaining and enjoy at the fullest what I have. Today I was looking thru my parents belongings and I found a typewriter, so I celebrated thanksgiving playing with it. I let the images speak. And here the letter I wrote to remember what I’m thankful for.

Oct 07

by Luigi Barbano in BlogUpdates, Film photography, meditations, Uncategorized 1 comments tags: Analogue photography, family archive, film photography, history, past, photo archive, photography, present, print, prints

Exploring the analogue past

In the last days I’m exploring an analogue past and thinking about the digital present. A lot of water passed under the bridge since my last blog post. My father passed away, my sabbatical I took to take care of him is going to end soon and at the moment I’m putting some order in my home getting ready to sell it and move on with my life. I come from a family were we used to keep everything and for sure a lot of pictures. Opening boxes and drawers I found the photographic archive of the family, the oldest one consisted in a lot of prints, starting from the beginning of 1900, the newest one, mostly created by me consists in CSs, DVDs and hard disks. Guess what? The oldest archive is accessible without any tools but my eyes and a source of light, the newest one requires a ton of tools and it is still accessible thanks only to the redundancy I applied when I created it, using different media to store my images, but the CDs and DVDs are almost all unreadable now. Vint Cref, one of the Internet fathers and Google VP, warned us about […]

Feb 21

by Luigi Barbano in BlogUpdates, CaptureOne, Film photography, Fujifilm, News, Uncategorized 10 comments tags: Acros, analogue camera, digital camera, film photography, film versus digital, Fujifilm, Hasselblad, photogrpahy, XPro-2

Fuji Acros Digital vs Fuji Acros Film

Digital or Film? Fuji Acros Digital on a XPro-2 compared to Fuji Acros 100 Film on Hasselblad 6×6… who will be the winner? Few weeks ago I did a non scientific comparison between black and white digital and film, using my beloved Fuji XPro-2 and a Pentax 67 with Ilford FP4. The article got a lot of interest and was also published on Fuji X Passion magazine. I decided to improve the test and use Fujifilm Neopan Acros 100 film, instead of Ilford FP4 and Hasselblad instead of Pentax. The use of actual Acros film instead of Ilford is obvious and needed for a less casual comparison. Hasselblad instead of Pentax is because I suspected some lack of sharpness was caused by the lenses, and since I have used Hasselblad all my life and I’m sure were the best analogue medium format camera and optics, I simply wanted to eliminate every variable related to the lens. As I said before: I know that, scanning the negative, part of the process is still digital so is not perfect I do not intend to give all the answers I did this just for fun and to understand myself a little better […]

Feb 05

by Luigi Barbano in BlogUpdates, Film photography, FineArt, Fujifilm, Uncategorized 0 comments tags: Fuji, Fuji X Passion, Fujifil, Luigi Barbano, photographic magazine, photography, XPro-2

Fuji X Passion magazine… I’m in!

Fuji X Passion magazine featured, in the February 2018 issue, my article about the comparison between film photography with Ilford FP4 on a Pentax 67 and digital Acros simulation on Fuji XPro-2. It is always great to be published in a beautiful magazine with other extremely talented photographers. In the meantime I just developed a roll of Fuji Acros taken with my Hasselblad 500C/M and the 80mm f2.8. More later…

Jan 31

by Luigi Barbano in BlogUpdates, CaptureOne, Film photography, Fujifilm, Uncategorized 8 comments tags: film photography, film vs digital, Fuji Acros, fuji XPro-2, Ilford FP4, Pentax 67, photography

Digital Fuji Acros vs Ilford FP4 Film

Is Black and white better with digital or film? I compared the Fuji Acros film simulation on my XPro-2 with an Ilford FP4 film on my Pentax 67. Lately I had the time to scan old negatives and I was pretty impressed by the quality and quantity of information available on film, so I decided to use film again, particularly for the PhoenixPhotoProject. The quality of the images created was pretty impressive so I decided to try some film in medium format. I used to work with Hasselblad but I decided to get a used Pentax 67 and have some fun with it. Next time a Pentax vs Hasselblad comaparision! I took some pictures on the snow in a sunny day. The dynamic range a the quality of the tones were great and I started to have the feeling that film can be better than digital sometime. I decided to do a simple non scientific comparison and take the same pictures with the XPro-2, in RAW and jpg with the Acros simulation, and with the Pentax 67 with a roll of Ilford FP4. The choice of a medium format film, compared to an APS-C digital is very simple, 24 MegaPixel […]

PhoenixPhotoProject #1: Free to choose

What is the value you give to a photograph? With the PhoenixPhotoProject #1 you are free to choose! Since its invention photography had been defined and valued in many different ways. With the PhoenixPhotoProject #1, “Free to Choose”, you can decide by yourself what value you give to photography. For Niepce, Talbot and Daguerre, the men we consider the inventors of the photographic process, photography was a chemical and mechanical way to reproduce reality. Nothing more than that and we know how, for long time, thanks to them and their definitions, it was so difficult to make photography accepted as art by the most. If this is the value you give to photography you will find in the box a great mechanical tool to reproduce the reality. The camera is a Pentax Spotmatic SP, one of the greatest mechanical cameras produced in the 1960s, very simple and without any automatism, only an internal exposure meter. The camera is completed by a SMC Takumar 55mm 1.8 – a great camera/lens combo! I found the camera on E-Bay and I bought it attracted by the engraving on the pentaprism: SPAIN 51862335. This camera has a story and for […]

Dec 31

by Luigi Barbano in BlogUpdates, Film photography, IR Photography, meditations, Uncategorized 0 comments tags: New Year, new year resolutions, photography, year balance

End of the year, time for balance and resolutions

The end of the year is always a time to do a balance of the time passed and make new resolutions for the new year. At least it is for me. The 2017 was a peculiar year. I took a sabbatical from my work, I had the option to put myself in a situation where I had to work 16 hours a day to make a sufficient gross to have, after the italian 85% taxes (35% income, 22% V.A.T. and 27.7% mandatory state managed retirement plan) enough to pay for someone taking care of my 91 years old father, or I could just do it personally and avoid to work 85% of my time for the government. The choice was a no-brainer: I took time for myself and gave back the care I received all my life. Professionally I consider this a great year. With the few time I had for myself I managed to write some books with very good reviews and realize some personal projects. To be far from the pressure of the profession I reignited my love for photography and had the time to think and develop new ideas. January started with a beautiful review […]

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