Welcome to my Unsung creatives – Pier Sparello post!

As a photographer, you often scour the internet and photography sites to get inspiration, and to collect images that you can use as reference material when working with other creatives like models, makeup artists, stylists and retouchers.

Almost always in conversations with other creatives I’ll send through a few reference images so that we’re all talking about the same thing.

I’ve loved the work of of Pier Sparello for a long time. He’s a photographer from Italy… and some of his shots are just so incredibly Italian that I just can’t deal with how great they are…

Like I wrote about in my post on Peter Nguyen, Pier also uses light in such interesting ways… in ways that are so incredibly different to Peter, but no less compelling.

I’ve seen so many photos of people (millions?) and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a shot like the above. It’s so fascinating. It’s not really the type of photo that a model would normally have in their lookbooks or folios… but it would stand out so much to a talent agency and customers. Her single green eye is so compelling.

I love the feeling of the shot above. It feels European, it feels like a photo that was taken a long time ago, despite only being a few days old. Her look straight into the camera, playing with her hair, her outfit, it feels like there is a really interesting story behind this shot that we’ll never get to know…

I don’t know for sure, but I imagine this photo was taken purely by the light from the window, and her face is perfectly positioned to not cause too much shadow on the right side of her face. The dark shadow on the side of her nose could have spread across her face if the angles were slightly different… but they’re not and it’s perfect.

I love the shadows in her shirt too and the difference between her face and shirt and the darker background. This is such a great shot.

Pier shoots through windows quite a lot, and it looks so good. I personally love black and white shots a lot, and Pier is really good at lighting black and white shots (which is quite different from lighting colour shots). His understanding of light is sublime, but the reflections of light off the window make this shot so much more interesting than so many other similar shots I’ve seen around the place.

Again, shot through a window or curtain which really forces the eye to focus on the model’s lips. So good! So interesting! I really regret not experimenting with this sort of style when I had my own studio… although, really, I don’t imagine Pier has a lot of gear… so I could try and take similar shots with what I’ve already got.

I threw this shot in because it’s super cute. You can see Pier in the reflection of the window. I’ve spent so much time getting angry at myself for ruining a shot with my reflection… and Pier has just embraced it. If anything the shape and shadow of his arm adds to the intrigue.

This is a far more produced shot than most of his folio. Most of his photos have a grit to them, whereas this one is way cleaner and more brightly lit… but I love it. The eye of the model and the lips of them both look great, but it’s the composition and and shadows that are the real MVPs of this image. How they found two models with virtually the same skin tone is beyond me…

This is one of the most photoshopped photo in Pier’s collection, and it’s not my favourite, but it’s such an incredible example of the black and white contrast with shadow.

So many of Pier’s photos are closely cropped on the model’s face… and I imagine Pier chooses particular models to work with. I’m not sure if he has a really small space to shoot in, or if he just loves faces… I’d be totally happy with either explanation. I love all these shots… you see so many non-professional photographers taking full body photos with as little clothing as possible, so it’s honestly refreshing to have a photographer concentrate on the most interesting part of a person.

I really love the photo above, and again one eye and the model’s lips are the prominent feature in the shot. Maybe Pier crops so tightly on the model’s faces because it’s truly the representation of the person?

This photo so wants me to get back into studio photography. The window reflection, the water droplets, the wet hair, the black and white look, the close crop, the focus/light in the eye and the model’s freckles are all perfect. I love this shot so much. It’s so good!

This shot is beautiful. You want to know more about her.. what is she thinking, why is she on the floor, what’s going on? One thing I really like about Pier’s shots is that the models usually have hair all over the place. So many other photographers, myself included, try and make the model’s hair is perfect… like, not a strand out of place, but that’s not realistic…

Ugh. I just love this so much. I think perfect makeup is a bit part of Pier’s photographic style, and this shot is honestly amazing… especially the fuzzy top the model is wearing.

I think we can all agree the smoking is not good… but man this shot is brilliant.

I’ve seen so many photos of models looking alluring in a bath, but this shot is just so intriguing… what is going on in her mind?

I’ve really just added this last shot because I think it shows that Pier shots out of his house, you can see the reflection of a car…

The shot above really just makes me wonder how much time Pier spends outside his house shooting in. Have his neighbours ever asked him about it?

It does show though, if you pay attention to the light, anywhere in the world can be your studio.

Thanks for reading my Unsung creatives – Pier Sparello post.

Hit me up on the Twitters if you want to talk photographies.

———————-Sources: Feature Image : Source———————-