Luciano Bonacini's Photography Exhibition

I came across this small art exhibition whilst on wandering round a local town on holiday. It was held in what would otherwise been a small shop in Malcesine, Italy, this itself was at first something that really surprised me. I have been to quite a few photography exhibitions in the past, this one appeared to be held in quite unassuming place and with only little publication that I am aware of. The thing that surprised me was not that an art exhibition would be held here, but more that the quality of the artist’s photographs that were there.

Luciano Bonacini’s photographs were fascinating to look at both technically and yet also in a way that made you realise that the artist had real talent. I spent ages just looking at the composition and trying to guess what settings the photographer would have used to capture the mood he did.


Unfortunately its quite hard to see the detail in the small prints that I was able to bring back with me, however hopefully they give some kind of indication to the original images. The majority of his subjects were naked women, shot in various positions and situations, (I overheard one visitor saying “one man’s art is another’s pornography). Having said that, apart from a handful of shots that I didn’t want to spend to long studying, most of these didn’t look out of place amongst the other still life shots.

Luciano Bonacini’s decision to photograph in black and white is one that I found particularly interesting. I am sure that I have said before when commenting on someone’s blog that the decision to put a photo into colour or Black and White can either detract from, or make the photo, this largely depends on the individual image itself. Although it doesn’t surprise me that the artist decided to shoot the entire 50 photos of “A Retrospective” in black and white, it has left me wondering if individually these some photos would not have had more impact in colour. Having said that the photos as a collective work do have a great impact and therefore I suppose that this was the right choice to make.

Since coming back from Italy I have tried to find out a bit more about this artist and how successful he has been. Sadly as my Italian is very poor I haven’t been able to work out much more than I could when at the exhibition itself, apart from the fact that the majority of the books around about this artist appear to be self published.

Personally I think that the work of this photographer is very different to that of the artist Mavis Roper that I mentioned previously in my blog. Mavis Roper’s work shows you so much about the subject and you feel that you are almost witnessing the scene itself through her lens. Luciano Bonacini’s work on the other hand somehow feels more detached and you are aware that you are seeing the scene through another person’s eyes. This is largely due to the staged shots of one in comparison to the more spontaneous photography of the other.

I don’t prefer one style over another by any means, but it has made me more aware that the viewer can tell the difference. i.e if you are creating a campaign where part of it’s appeal is to be seeing ‘real life’ situations then these should be as close to spontaneous as possible as staged photos have the tendency to look exactly that.