Alessandro's Bio

My name is Alessandro Bocchi and I am from Italy. I was born in 1970 in Mirandola near Modena in the center of Italy. Now I live in Padua, near Venice with my wife, 6 rabbits, 2 Guinea pigs, 2 cats and 1 dog. I work as a computer technician all days and for this reason I started to hate the latest technological equipments.

I started taking pictures during one summer at the sea in the south of Italy. I was a 14 years boy and I was with other friends in the swimming pool of the camping. There was a very beautiful girl of my same age and I started taking pictures of her (you can see the pictures I am talking about on my flickr page). I immediately discovered the pleasure of taking pictures. Portrait of person. The camera I used was my fathers camera, a wonderful Rollei 35 TE. I still have that camera and I still use it once in a while because its still really compact.

After my fathers camera I had the Fujica STX2, the Nikon F 301 and many many others like the Nikon FM2, F3, F100 and also the F4s. When I moved to the digital with a Nikon D300 I sold everything for a very cheap price. But very soon I felt that the digital photography was missing something.

One day in a little old shop I came across a Mamiya RB67. It was love at first sight. I could never take that camera out of my head. I finally got that camera and then a series of lenses from the 50 mm to the 180 mm and other accessories. I discovered again the pleasure of taking pictures. Taking pictures with a camera that doesn't have any batteries. A camera that is completely mechanical and that will not take any kind of decision by herself. The only little problem of this camera is that its a huge camera to take with you around the city. For this reason I came across to a Mamiya C330. This is my definitive camera. I really love this camera. I can have interchangeable lenses, there is no mirror that slaps and makes vibration and noise, and finally it works with the square format that is the one I like most.

Taking pictures with this two cameras gives me lot of satisfaction and lot of attentions too. Everyone is looking at me when I walk with one of this cameras hanging from my neck. Everyone wants to see, to know and to look trough the finder. But the most eye popping thing is the instant film back. I love to take pictures of people on instant film and than give than the picture. They are always very happy and usually they let me take more pictures. I also keep the instant film negative that i bleach and than put in the scanner to get back the picture that I gave to the subject. I really love that reclaimed negatives. It's really amazing to see how many details you can take out from that thing that usually I throw away.

Recently I found myself to use more and more black and white film. I like very much the Ilford HP5 and I began to use the Kodak TRI-X just from few months. I just finished a dark room course and I loved the developing and the printing so much. I am just a beginner and I describe myself an apprentice photographer.

The more I go on, the more I discover that I don't know anything and there is much much more to learn. I still make a lot of mistakes and I waste film most of the time, but when you took a nice picture and you develop it and then print it, and it will magically appear on the paper in the dark room, it is an amazing satisfaction.

Here you can see some of my pictures that I like  most.

As you can see one of my preferred subjects are portraits. I always ask my wife, my daughter and also my friends to pose for me. My wife has been a model since she was 6 months old, starting with advertising baby nappies. Now she is no longer a model, by the other side, she became a much better photographer than me. I use every occasion to take portrait pictures. Recently, there was a rabbit fair and i shot a portrait to everyone holding his own bunny.

Alessandro Bocchi