Event Details
Thu, May 17, 2018 to Fri, September 14, 2018
19:00 – 21:00
LIMONAIA
Villa La Pietra
Via Bolognese, 120
50139 Firenze, Italia
Inside Out
Camera Obscura Views of Villas and Their Environs
The Photography of Abelardo Morell
Villa La Pietra, Florence
Early History
I made my first picture using camera obscura techniques in a darkened living room in 1991. In setting up a room to make this kind of photograph, I cover all windows with black plastic in order to achieve total darkness. I then, I cut a small hole in the material. This opening allows an inverted image of the view outside to project onto the back walls of the room. These images are the photograph of this effect. My exposures using film in the early days were very long – as much as eight hours.
Present Use
I now use a lens over the hole in the window dark plastic in order to add to the overall sharpness and brightness of the incoming image. I often also use a prism to make the projection come in right side up. I have also been able to shorten my exposures considerably thanks to digital technology, which in turn makes it possible to capture more momentary light. I love the increased sense of reality that the outdoor has in these new works. The marriage of the outside and the inside is now made up of more equal partners.
In 2017 I was invited by Ellyn Toscano to make photographic works at the Villa. This wonderful villa turned out to be a perfect place in which to use my Camera Obscura technique because of how its interior architecture and art visually play with the Villa’s views of its surrounding outdoor garden landscape. In some ways they are a mirror image of each other.
It’s so exciting to see how a work of art can mingle with things happening outside to create a brand new visual creation. It’s a world where photography, architecture and painting complete each other in perfect counterpoint.
– Abelardo Morell
Photographs from the Inauguration
The exhibition will be visible through September 14, 2018
