Sicily On Focus

Sicily on Focus was something I had envisioned as similar to Lusitanus on Focus: nice horses, nice clothing and nice backgrounds. And the skies in the island are to die for…

The complete team that helped us at Corleone

My idea was to have a small group of 5 or 6 people with open minds and good traveling experience, to share together the Sicilian culture and art as well. Sicily is close to Africa, so close that a good swimmer can cross to the other continent, and yet Sicily is in Europe, no vaccinations needed, no traveling virus, no weird currencies.

I had made a budget calculation for 2.500 to 3000 euros, all included, even the wine, the clothes, the minivan, the driver, just everything. A nice proposal, for 12 days in Sicily.

The food here is yummy, homemade pasta with seafood and creamy goat cheese

I am often afraid to advertise my shared-trips because I am rather selective about who I travel with, so when some people of those choosen 5 backed off , I decided that the project was so interesting that I would do it just for the three of us: Margreet Schouren, Elly and myself. It was a great idea 🙂

The fact that there were only 3 of us enjoying the trip had a great POSITIVE impact on the real budget, as we didn’t need anymore a van nor a driver and we were invited to stay at the farms and houses nearly everywhere. And some great hosts we are having ( we are still traveling in Sicily, now driving to Aidone). We even got to shoot in some places where a bigger group wouldn’t be allowed.

Shot with my phone, one of our locations

I am sure that this happened for a good reason, and the three of us are returning here soon to continue a project we have in mind, inshallah, and probably next year there will be another project in The Netherlands 🙂

For the moment I have decided that three is a good number for my shared trips, except India where we will be five.

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I love sharing my trips with other photographers but it is a privilege not a commercial business, so I select carefully my traveling companions, now even more strictly than ever ;-).

Clothing, make up and good mood can make a difference. Giuseppe  Cimarosa collecting the clothes for the shoot while Noemi checks her make up

Sharing knowledge, skills and ideas is what I love in this kind of trips. Developing concepts, having good food, being free to think outside the box, discussing together a story or a whole shoot.. not babysitting tourists with a camera.

Studying three classical painters was one of the challenges, it took us three days to complete the project, long discussions till late at night, long tests for the best moment to shoot (natural light), good wine to help the creativity and good mood to help us be confident and creative

We even did a sèance of boudoir indoors, with a medium zoom (70/200) and a few other situations like a sort of “engagement” shoot, inside a XVII century house, only natural light, only one short lens to be used. Big challenges when only one lens is allowed, but nice results.

Designer and stylist: Elly Schraven, model Giulia Arancio

 

 

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