Milan born photographer Luca Tombolini uses large format photography and an eye for the simplicity in nature to create unique landscape photographs. His choice of angles and the soft, pastel coloured light which illuminates the fluent shapes of rock and sand, allow for images that blur the line between photography and painting.
Some of his photos are not immediately recognisable for what they are, nature become an abstract; a conglomerate of contrasting and complementing shapes and colours.
Luca Tombolini’s work immediately resonated with me. In an interview he said the reason he is drawn towards the desert and primordial places is because they allow his mind to shift to a more essential state. For long periods of time he immerses himself into the landscape, the process of creating is a slow one, not only because he uses large format film to capture his photographs.
Although the circumstances do not allow me to photograph anything like and as Luca Tombolini does I still see his work as an important source of inspiration for my project.
For my portfolio, which will be a collection of photographs of the sea in Malta, I seek to integrate some of Tombolini’s approaches to colour composition and choice of angles. This I will try to do by photographing mainly during the morning and evening hours of the day, when the light is softer and I get a higher chance of pastel colours.
