In this final part of the year, I’m collecting fresh ideas for how to start 2019. This year brought me a lot of interesting collaborations and photo projects that I still haven’t shared here or on my socials, such as the gigapixel panoramic photography I did for the tourist board of my home region.
There’s always a balance between what you want to show online and what you want to target with your own website and work. I started in 2018 targeting my website and photography only as “Portrait and Fashion Photography“.
But then I realized I was going to lose or leave out the parts of photography I also enjoy, such as travel, landscape, and some minimal and geometric photo styles.
At the same time, I think you may notice that I love new technologies and love to see and test how these new devices will impact our storytelling. This year has been interesting because it brought me back to some old shooting techniques: after more than 10 years, I went back to shooting on film with an old camera.
I found satisfaction in this process, and I will soon share my thoughts on film and digital in our day and age on the blog. Note: the cover photo of this blog post is from a film shot this summer on a Pentax 67 camera using Kodak Portra 160, scanned with an Imacon scanner.
So I have a list of ideas for this website and proposals for 2019:
Change the graphic layout a bit: the initial front page will be a cleaner gallery of my photography.
The news and blog section will be a different and separate page. So if you come directly to the home page, don’t worry that the news and articles are gone. They will just be in a different section.
I‘ll keep doing camera tests, focusing on mobile photography. There will be more quality gallery layouts, easy to visit on desktop and mobile too. I think I have found a nice way to show the images without impacting page load speed too much.
I want to focus more on growing my YouTube channel. Until now, it’s been a sort of experiment; I haven’t put much effort into it, but now I want to push it more. I have a lot of ideas I want to cover and expand on, and I’m studying how to improve the quality as well, from the video to the editing and the audio.
I started my IGTV channel on Instagram last month. That channel will focus on mobile editing. I think the vertical format of IGTV is well-suited for showing how to improve editing on a smartphone using programs like Lightroom, Snapseed, Google Photos, Apple Photos, and so on.
I’ll revamp my educational section: I am already recording a new series on “Editing with Lightroom” that will guide users from zero on how to use the program and how to best process images.
I’m also working on custom Lightroom presets that will be available here on this website. The presets will address the problems of shooting raw with a smartphone. You may notice that when you shoot raw with a smartphone, the files come out very dull, without any contrast and color: my presets, with one click, will give you a really good base comparable to the JPG but with the quality and flexibility of raw file editing.
As you probably know, I’ve recently started to use Capture One Pro. I made this move when Phase One announced a new special version targeted for Fujifilm users. So I’m using Capture One alongside Lightroom: I don’t think I will make a permanent switch, because Lightroom has some great advantages for me, especially when shooting with a smartphone (syncing with the cloud on any device, from desktop to mobile). But I see very great potential in the editing of my .RAF files from the Fujifilm with Capture One.
For this reason, I will focus on this software too on the blog and in the educational section of my website.
I want to open a shop on the website where I will sell some of my photographs. They will be limited editions of my favorite shots from the last 15+ years. The prints will be fine art quality, giving the customer a very high-end product; for this reason, I have contacted a professional laboratory in Florence with 30+ years of experience that has produced prints for fine art exhibitions in Italy and abroad. They also have special packaging to protect the prints, so I can send them worldwide without worrying about damage.
Last but not least, I’m planning some live classes and workshops. The live classes will be held in my studio in Florence during the week, while there will be some specific workshops during the weekend in Florence and Tuscany. This will be a great opportunity for anyone who wants to enjoy a holiday in Tuscany. My goal is also to organise again my summer workshop of portrait and fashion photography in Croatia. So if you are interested in any of these activities, please write to me already.
I want to thank all of you: in 2018 I broke my record for visitors on this website/blog and got a lot of nice messages and comments — they give me the energy to improve and look forward, even if I know the outside competition is outstanding.
I wish you all a nice holiday season and a great start to the new year.
Alessandro
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