Theater and
Entertainment Photography
“Photography is the art of showing how many ephemeral moments life is made of”
Marcel Proust
1- Presentation
Theater is a complex cultural event in which the task of communicating the message of the performance is entrusted to a set of elements. The art of theater blends the ephemeral world of sensory and emotional experience with the image created by movement and spatiality, the result is a transitory image that creates a narrative in the making made up of scenic fragments and actions that inhabit the stage.
A photographer who deals with theater must capture the ephemeral with his work. Expression, movement, gesture, space, scenographic furniture and lights must be captured in an image. The photographer’s goal is to create an image able to make these elements interact in a complementary way, creating a shot capable not only of documenting a passage of the representation but also the essence of the theatrical moment itself.
Starting from this assumption, in 2014 the Etoile Centro Teatrale Europeo proposed a photography course of the show conducted by the photographer Tiziano Ghidorsi. A formative path that has as its primary objective to bring photographers, at a basic or advanced level, closer to the photography of the show.
The first show photography course was activated in the 2014/2015 academic year with a cycle of theoretical lessons conducted by photographer Tiziano Ghidorsi. During the cycle of lessons, the students were introduced to notions relating to photographic techniques, the study of light, the study of the composition of the image, always placed in an interconnected manner with entertainment photography. The course involved a constant dialogue between theoretical learning and practical verification of the skills acquired by the students, through direct experiences in the field, which saw the photographers immediately approach the scene following the lessons and workshops offered by the theater school and the productions of Etoile.
From this class was created a real photographic collective called “Appunti di Scena”, which in April 2017 published a book of the same name, which collects the photographic experiences of the student-photographers who followed the shows and events proposed by Etoile.
In the year 2015/2016 a new show photography course was activated for a new class, the objectives and contents were the same as the first edition, with the addition of the support of the photographers who had participated in the previous course as training tutors for new students.
The work of this photographic collective deals with documenting and narrating with images the scenic vicissitudes proposed by the productions and events directed by Daniele Franci, Artistic Director of Etoile, approaching other cultural and social realities of the Reggio province.
The collective Appunti di Scena exhibits on the occasion of the annual European Photography Exhibition “La via Emilia va in scena”, giving photographers the opportunity to place themselves within a wider artistic panorama.
The third course of Entertainment Photography was promoted for the academic year 2017/2018, with the teachers Tamara Boscaino and Gabriella Davolio who guide the participating students in a series of intensive weekends of workshops that lead them to touch the experience of stage photography. The course was structured to coincide with the production of Etoile “Noi non abbiamo segreti”, which debuts at the Franco Tagliavini Theater in Novellara in February 2018; the students therefore had the opportunity to outline their training path in parallel with the work of the actors, managing to follow photographing and refine their skills in relation to every single phase of the show.
An important collaboration over the years has developed starting from the meeting between the scene photographer Tamara Boscaino, student of the first class of Entertainment Photography, who since 2018 is the official photographer of ITAF, the Higher Formation school promoted by FITA, Etoile European Theater Center and Theater Franco Tagliavini.
Tamara Boscaino has specialized for years in live entertainment photography, with her photographic eye she has followed numerous projects and productions promoted by Etoile, coming to publish in 2018 with FITA, a monographic work on the ITAF experience narrated through her shots . The title of the work is “ITAF. International Theater Academy of FITA. Diary of five years of training ”, inside it contains the photographic history of five editions of the school.
Tamara Boscaino’s photos therefore become an essential means to understand the training path of the students participating in ITAF, as the images are not limited to show only moments of entertainment, but also moments of rehearsal and artistic research in which the young actors are the protagonists.
Tamara Boscaino in 2020 follows at 360 degrees the opening event of the Franco Tagliavini Theater entitled “D’Istanti Di-Stanze”, shooting for a whole week, on the occasion of the rehearsals open to the public, the moments of rehearsal, studio and search for actors. The result is a dynamic photographic story, capable of defining and documenting not only theatrical moments but real moments of artistic research.
The combined action of Etoile, the direction of the Tagliavini Theater and the Administration of Novellara aimsl to continue and implement this dialogue between photography and theatrical action, creating new opportunities for exchange and research, capable of relating the two disciplines.
2- Technical information
FOTOGRAFIA DELLO SPETTACOLO
Anno Accademico di riferimento/ Academic Year | Numero Allievi/ Number of Students | Ore di formazione svolte/ Hours of lessons | Eventi seguiti/ Events | Pubblicazione/Publication |
2014/2015 | 5 | 30 | 7 | 0 |
2015/2016 | 6 | 30 | 14 | 1 |
2017/2018 | 6 | 30 | 7 | 1 |
Tot. | 17 | 90 | 28 | 2 |
Anno Accademico di riferimento/ Academic Year | Eventi fotografati/ Events |
2018/2019 | 18 |
2019/2020 | 9 |
2020/2021 | 4 |
Tot. | 33 |
3- Reports
