A photowalk with Giacomo Brunelli

I met with Giacomo Brunelli for a 3-day photo walk and workshop where we took lots of photos and discussed his tips and advice on publishing books.

Giacomo discussing sequencing of photos in a book.

Earlier in the year a friend called me to say he'd booked onto a photo walk with a guy called Giacomo Brunelli. I hadn't heard of Giacomo at the time, but I realised later, I had seen his work.

Giacomo is a multi-published Italian photographer with many books to his name. His images have also been used in other books and even a Holywood film.

He shoots exclusively in black and white and always using Kodak Tri-X film. His equipment is a simple manual focus mechanical rangefinder camera and there is big no bag full of kit, just one camera and one lens. I really enjoy this ethos because it focuses your mind on using just the limited kit you have with you. This in turn will make you a better photographer whilst you look for appropriate opportunities.

Some great books published by Giacomo are 'Eternal London' 'New York' and 'The Animals'. I was particularly keen to talk to him about how to present my own book that I'm putting together on India. I picked up some really good ideas. I also shared some images I'll be using in the book so he could get a feel for my work.

For the 3 days, I took with me a digital camera and also a film camera with some colour film.

By day 2 and taking a leaf out of Giacomo's book, I ended up using just the film camera and a 35mm lens leaving the digital camera at home for the next few days.

I've taken pictures many times in London before and been to all the places we visited but it was a great opportunity to select a different film each day and explore it's capabilities whilst talking to Giacomo for inspiration on my own book.

The weather was sunny, really sunny in fact. You'd never think it was March. For the most part, I was wearing t-shirt and shorts which is almost unheard of at this time of year in the UK.

With 3 full days of sunshine, I shot a roll of Kodak Ektar 100 on day 1, a roll of Portra 400 on day 2 and a roll of Kodak Gold on day 3.

With just my Leica rangefinder camera and a 35mm lens, it was a trip back to my photographic roots which I enjoyed very much.

Day 1 - Kodak Ektar 100