Giovanni Previdi

Giovanni Previdi is a bookseller and photographer from Bologna, Italy. 

“One Sunday about 3 years ago (while I was at work and there were few people in the bookstore), I started leafing through a newspaper that advertised a small Fujifilm instant camera. Intrigued by it, I bought it right away but after about fifty photos I realized that it was not for me. The colours were too vivid and I did not like the small size of the photograph. I decided to try a Polaroid instead, and after several searches on eBay, I found the camera I thought was right for me: the SX-70 Land Camera. It was love at first sight. I have never left it since and I shoot almost every day.” 

His style: 

Giovanni mainly shoots female portraits and Still Life. But without a doubt portraiture is where his heart is.

The portraits that Giovanni Previdi sent have in common the fact that they were taken without a flash and using only the soft light of a window on an overcast day. Giovanni loves this kind of minimal lighting because it allows him to bring out sections of the face and body out of the dark just like in certain paintings by Caravaggio. 

“I like the idea that an instant photo is unique and not reproducible, it saves moments of life just before they are sucked into the darkness.” 

What does being feature mean to Giovanni: 

“Sending this series of portraits to Le Freak Media is not only a great pleasure but it also represents for me an opportunity to broaden the audience of my images in the hope that someone, by seeing even just one, will keep it in their memory even for just a day, drawing some comfort from it.”  

You can see more of Giovanni’s work on his instagram profile @giovanni_previdi

Freak, out!