Photographer: Salvatore Tambato (Italy)

Can you tell us a little about you?

I am Salvatore, 65 years old, passionate about photography since I was 20. Born in Nocera Terinese (CZ), a small town of about 5000 people, but with my family I moved quite soon to Cosenza, city where I grew up and where my lifelong passion for photography began. My passion started looking at the relationship between the city and its own inhabitants, it was not only an external space with architectures, but a place rich of folkloristic, cultural and fashion elements.I started with the urban landscape, capturing the cities and showing them through my views. The tools at that time were certainly not as technological as those of today, but the hard work behind a single picture and the uncertainty on its result involved me more and more, every day, almost 24 hours a day, a passion inherited from my father.Constantly in the spasmodic research to immortalize emotions and above all to stop the time. My progresses in the technique soon led me to fall in love about the detail, the particular, the stroke, to make an eternal shot, the result of that extraordinary development that the science of photography has reached today.

How and when did you get into photography?

It was my wife, in the 1970s, who gave me my first camera. A Kodak Extalite 450, a 'compact camera' with a strange flat shape, from there my interest in photography began. Later with my first salary I made an investment: I bought a Fujica STX1 which I still jealously guard today; a professional and strictly manual camera. With it I photographed the most evocative places both in Greece, Spain, France and Yugoslavia and in Italy, whose hidden beauty is often ignored. I photographed with film, but I preferred slide printing. Since then, the study in specialized magazines, and a lot of experimentation, have allowed me to grow by expanding my knowledge in the photographic field and fueling my passion.

In 2006, with the advent of digital, I gave up film and slides. I bought a Nikon 4500 camera. After a year, to keep up with progress, I replaced it with other SLR models, with modern features and experiments, all strictly Nikon cameras, of which I have always been a fan. Today another qualitative leap: from reflex I switched to using 2 Nikon Z6 mirrors equipped with relative reference lenses.

What does photography mean to you?

For me, photography is life. There isn't a day that I don't take some pictures. I like to photograph subjects in their spontaneity. Thus, I avoid pre-established postures, preferring the "stolen shots", to be clear those that capture sensual expressions, of suffering, sadness or happiness and that characterize human factors more than anything else.

4Please briefly describe your photography style for our readers.

I like to photograph everything that conveys emotions, such as the charm of portraiture, fashion and glamor and recently dancing bodies; being able to immortalize in a single shot the perfect figures of a body in motion.

Where do you get inspiration from?

I read many books of photography, and above all I pause to study the images that other photographers make, imagining the patterns of light they used to create the much-loved shadows. The master photographers who often inspire me are Giovanni Gastel, Tommy Napolitano, Alberto Buzzanca, Damiano Errico, artists I got to know by participating in their workshops. These appointments have enriched me humanly and professionally. The only regret is that of not having had the opportunity to meet Helmut Newton who for me remains the inimitable and unparalleled Master of Photography famous in particular for his studies on the female nude.

Do you think in advance what you want in the picture?

Yes, if I don't have an idea I don't leave it to chance and improvisation.

Studio, on location or both?

I make the idea a priori, then I look for the right location and create the composition of the shot. During the outdoor shooting session, I like to change locations often, clearly with changes of clothes and make-up of the model.

Would you consider yourself a hobbyist or a paid professional?

A paid professional highly passionate on what i do.

What is one piece of advice you would like to offer a new photographer looking to start their own business?

For a photographer starting now, I do recommend attending photography courses and workshops, real learning tools. Leaving aside these important tools, we start off on the wrong foot, because not having rules and not using tried and tested techniques, the risk is to produce flat images that “don't speak".

What has been your most memorable session and why?

Although I do love glamor shootings and portraitures, the sessions which alwyas emotion me most are the ones part of photographic project for a humanitarian association called “Ali Rosa” (which means “pink wings”). This is an association made of women who have had or still have cancer, my work with them is to represent in the shots how these women, despite of the severe illness, are full of femininity and desire to live. I do always feel very gratified of the work with them.

Nikon or Canon? Favorite lens?

Nikon, favorite lens 85 mm 1,8 S

What do you think of our new magazine?

The magazine is very beautiful, the images collected confirm the quality of the graphics and above all the professionalism of the photographers who are chosen by the editorial staff. Congratulations, you are truly unique.

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/salvatore.tambato

Website, www.fototambato.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tambato/