ADZERO
The big problem is this. If you ask 100 people to describe how they imagine the “Nativity,” you will get 100 different answers.
Religion, history, traditions, and customs have always mixed and overlapped in a perpetual motion, and all this makes it difficult to describe an event stripped of all non-essential things.
Only two Gospels tell this story: Matthew and Luke.
And the accounts basically agree only on a few points.
Jesus was born in Bethlehem at the time of Herod the Great, Joseph and Mary were the parents, an angel announces the birth of the child who will be called Jesus and will be conceived by divine intervention.
And then... that's it.
In summary.
For Matthew, the annunciation by an angel is made to Joseph. For Luke, the angel addresses Mary.
For Luke, the birth of Jesus takes place in Bethlehem because the parents leave Nazareth due to a census. Matthew, on the other hand, suggests that there was no journey because they already lived in Bethlehem.
And then... for Matthew, Jesus is born at home, for Luke in a manger.
For Luke, Jesus is adored by the shepherds but nothing is said about the Wise Men. On the contrary, for Matthew, there are the Wise Men but no adoration by the shepherds. And to finish this (incomplete) summary, for Matthew, after the birth of Jesus, the Holy Family flees to Egypt to escape Herod's persecution, Luke does not mention any of this.
So?
What happened to all the elements we take for granted in a nativity scene? It's hard to give an answer.
©Max Angeloni - All rights reserved
With the Protoevangelium of James (mid-2nd century), some elements such as the cave, the ox, and the donkey are added. For the comet, we have to wait until 1301 and the hand of Giotto, who decided to include the passage of Halley's Comet in his painting (Scrovegni Chapel in Padua).
One could go on for hours listing all the elements that over the centuries have been layered onto the original stories.
But the fact is that trying to reconstruct such an event while trying to remain as faithful as possible to the facts is impossible.
For this reason, for the creation of ADZERO, we decided to work fundamentally on three points:
The perfect historical consistency of all the elements present in the scene.
Delving into the psychological aspect of the protagonists.
Settings capable of combining geographical compatibility with figurative tradition.
For the historical consistency of all the elements present in the scene, as always, Vincenzo Ricciarello and Massimo De Clementi took care of it.
Clothing and accessories were created, recovered, and adapted.
On set, it truly felt like going back two millennia.
To outline the profile of the characters, we thought of Mary as a very young girl who submits to a divine will with the grace and determination that only a mother can have. As the angel, an ethereal figure, the link between heaven and earth, able to fill every scene with her light and divine beauty.
All under the constantly watchful gaze of Joseph. Joseph is always silent but never absent. In fact, his silence is that of a father fully committed to protecting his family.
This was made possible by those who, as always, with affection and passion, decided to enthusiastically join the project.
Gilles Rocca embodied a perfect Saint Joseph, bent under the weight of his enormous responsibilities.
Silvia Sera, a divine angel able to illuminate the scene and the future of humanity.
Ludovica Galli, a very young girl who becomes the mother of the son of God and the mother of us all.
For the locations, however, we really needed help from above. And this help from above materialized in our friend Claudio Pisani and the mayor of Calcata, Sandra Pandolfi.
In addition to offering the patronage of the municipality of Calcata (VT), they allowed us to shoot inside one of the most picturesque villages in Italy. Furthermore, Claudio impeccably took care of all the logistical organization.
All this to explain how important planning, collaboration, the choice of people, and the choice of the right photographic equipment are to complete even such a complex job.
In photography, as always, there is no need to take 1000 photos in search of the right pose or hope that the right photo comes out by chance.
The longer the shooting session, the more tired all the participants in the project become.
The real work, the hard work, takes place before and after. The moment we photograph must always be a moment of joy because it is the moment when a project born of great passion comes to fruition... our passion: photography.
For those interested in technical details, the triptych (Annunciation, Nativity, Flight into Egypt) was made at 400 ISO and three 600 Watt flashes to achieve the best possible result in terms of dynamic range, file cleanliness, and detail.
The portraits, on the other hand, were taken in ambient light and 12800 ISO to achieve a more "rough" and warm result that suited the representation of characters who lived over two millennia ago.
The work was created with Fujifilm GFX50s and Fujifilm GF Lens system lenses.
Technical data.
Max Angeloni
: Photographer
Gilles Rocca
: Giuseppe
Silvia Sera
: the Angel
Ludovica Galli
: Maria
Massimo De Clementi
: Shepherd
Silvia Ricciarello
: Peasant woman
Valter Ventrone
: Photography Assistant
Costumes and care of historical consistency:
Vincenzo Ricciarello, Massimo De Clementi
Location and organization:
Claudio Pisani
Production assistant:
Jacopo Pisani
Sponsorship:
Comune di Calcata
A heartfelt thank you to the mayor of Calcata,
Sandra Pandolfi
, a great friend who once again has become a promoter of the art of photography.