Today, in “The New Ones“, we will discuss with Chiara Finelli (aka @fiinelli) to present her photographic style. You can find the first article about Chiara at this link.

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INTERVIEW WITH CHIARA FINELLI

Hi Chiara! Tell us about your life

I was born in Turin the first September of the 1997, since my childhood I was attracted by creative things, painting, drawing and in particular to built things by my own. Photography arrives very soon in my tools when my aunt gifted me an Olympus compact camera. I started to take photography of everything, but since the beginning I was not interested in panorama or portraits. I used to take photos of little precious things and with this digital camera I started to film myself and experimenting self-portrait dancing in-front of the camera. Furthermore, I am very disappointed to have lost all this material, it could have been something interesting to analyze and relating it to the pictures I am taking now. To become a professional photographer never been my vocation, but photography will be always a deep important part of my life.

When did your passion for photography begin?

My passion in photography begins when I discovered how to manipulate, directly into the camera machine, the reality I saw. But this happened near my fifteen, before that the first time i can remember like the beginning of my passion into photography was when i found a compact analogue camera in a pack of prepackaged sweet snack. The camera was orange and with an amazing Bugs Bunny sticker on it. I was too young, and my parents didn’t give me a film roll for using the camera, but I was deeply intended to use it. So I create a film roll using ordinary withe paper, I cut it in little long stripes and then attached them together from the smallest side. In that way I was able to use the camera and shot fake pictures of everything. After shooting, I draw down on the paper roll, with a pencil, the picture I have taken. I am still laughing to remember this event. That could be a great example to explain how I was interested into photography since the beginning.

Did you study in an academy or on your own?

I started to take pictures on my own, my mother had a reflex camera because she is an amateur and when I was at the middle school I asked her to let me use it. After that, when I was fifteen I bought my own first reflex camera, an old canon 550D, for experimenting how much I wanted. After the high school, I was really uncertain about how to continue my studies. I was interested in art and in visual art in particular, but I was intended to start work as soon as possible. So I started the three-year program in visual art studies at IED Torino, taking my degree in photography in the 2019. But to be honest the main reasons why I arrived to take part of it was a total coincidence, I read in a flyer, that someone give me on street, that IED gave a discount for who was interested to apply at their courses. I think that luck sometime drives your life, or better, I think that we are moved by the littlest choices we make.

In your opinion, when should a photo be considered a masterpiece?

This is a hard question to reply for me, I think that a photo became a masterpiece because the audience recognized it in this way. I could say that a masterpiece photo is the one we have not seeing yet. What we are waiting for is a masterpiece, the next one we are near to shot is a masterpiece.

Photos by Chiara Finelli – ©All rights reserved

What is your favorite photographic subject?

Analyzing my production, I am quite sure to admit that I have not a favorite photographic subject. What repeat often in my photos is a specific image composition. In particular, I am in search of new scenography that appear when different things add themselves in front of something o beside something else. I often use my self body to create this kind of scenarios, either with its shadows projection or from cropped parts of it. I deeply interested in how much the photography could be used like a paint brush for creating an imaginary.

What are your current photographic projects? What are your ‘secrets wishes’?

My current photographic projects take place in analyzing how I can obtain, directly in the camera, the same manipulation I could have achieve using postproduction. And my secret wish is to take part of an artistic residency for being advised and led by some curators or artists for making a great show experience designed by me. I strongly wish to make my photographic works something real and available. I would mix different media and increment what photography is.

How much do you believe emotions influence photography?

For my point of view emotions is the heart of photography, we must never forget that a picture is a construction made by us. Images are used to communicate, and we, human beings, communicate by emotions.

How much do you think retouching affects your photos?

In my practice, retouching is something that is useful to what I need to obtain. For the most I use it for correcting a little the white balance, the exposure or the high light and the shadows but always in a delicate way. Otherwise, I use it for changing completely the image and create something else. But in this case I use it exclusively like an artistic approach. I really like experimenting destroying the photography files and bring It’s near to disappear. Never stop the experimentation!

From a technical standpoint, how does one of your photos come about?

Technical standpoint? This is an interesting question because there is never enough technique in my practice. But I will describe you my work flow. First I get attracted from something: how the light illuminates an object, how the composition of the landscape appears from my point of view, how a person behaves etc. And instinctively, I’ll take a picture of that. Maybe here my photographic studies help me to not think about how to set the camera because I am used to doing it, I automatically do it in order to achieve the result I expect. After that I recorded all the images divided in different folders by date and give them a title. When time passed over I open all the folders and looking at the photos I took in a new way and, only at this time, I create the project, analyzing them in a critical way. That is the technical process I used for my personal project where there is not a commission or a statement from which I have to start to producing image. In the case someone gives me a statement, I usually used the standard design method: analyzing the topic on which I have to work on and dialing a list and schemes about how I could approach it, and after that create the images I projected for transmitting what I want to explain.

What emotions guide you when you take photos?

The main emotion that drives me when I am taking photos is the need or the urgency to let other people see what I am looking at, feeling the same I felt. The main question I still not have answered is: “Have you seeing this? Did you feel it?”

Many thanks to Chiara for making this article possible. If you would like to take a look at her profile on Instagram, click here. If you liked it, please share it and support our magazine.