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Marco Criniti

Put your hands together for the man from Turin. The city of Fiat, FC Torino, the Shroud of Turin, another football club and the host of the winter olympics in 2006. To our knowledge, our new member has nothing to do with any of this. Instead we bring you the cinephile and photographer Marco Criniti!

Welcome to Full Frontal Flash Marco, we’re really happy to have you.
Tell us a bit about yourself.
Born and raised in Torino, Italy, in 1990. I approached photography in 2016. I cannot say someone introduce me to this world, it’s something I feel extremely personal about and built almost totally on my own. I’m a big movie buff, I think my mind is mainly imprinted by movie stills and the concept of trying to represent what I see through images came certainly from this.

When did you start with photography and more importantly when and why did you start to use a flash?
After my graduation, when I was 24 or 25 years old, I started working in a really strange situation, a little local movie festival in my city, where I used to help organizing festivals and I started working as videomaker. In that place I tried many cameras, studio lights, studying the general basic rules and so on.

After a while, I decided to buy my own camera for making videos not only in the working context and at the same time, when I discovered the “idea” of street photography, I also decided to use my camera for shooting random photos during my days, trying to understand what it meant.

I started playing with flash after 1 year, when my girlfriend bought it to me as a present for my birthday. I brought it with me almost every time I had a walk with my camera and, month after month, I think it  helped me to improve my photographic approach to situations and people. I think it open my mind to many more possibilities and I love the way it twisted the scene many times.

Could you describe your photographic style?
I appreciate dynamic shots a lot. In general, I can say that I work and think better if both me and the subjects are moving. To static situations make me feel bored. I love using flash in manual, I think in many cases, it gives that error touch I’m looking for. Maybe, most of the time, I don’t like having full control during my shooting process. At the beginning I used to shoot with the flash only off camera with a simple white diffuser, but over time, I try to use flash in many other different ways. Starting to combine together more tools and techniques. I can say that generally I’m not waiting too much for one shot. I react better if I constantly change spot. In this way, people don’t understand what’s happening , they are not aware of my presence and as a result, I feel more comfortable.

Show us some of your flash photos and tell us something about them.

I found this scene while I was following a political rally in my city. Next to the event, there was a little fast food, where I saw this woman fighting with his child, who was a real pain in the neck, trying to convince him to eat something. I suffered a lot for her, she stayed in that position for many minutes so it was not difficult to take my time!
I’ve taken this shot in a small ceramic studio, where sometimes I go to have a chat with a friend who works there. I’ve always loved that particular spot, I printed in my mind that gun and clock since the first time I saw them but I’ve waited many times to find the good situation to start doing something.
I live in a town not far from some nice places in the Alps, so I usually have a few days there. In the last couple of years I’ve seen cows or goats grazing and I decided to spend some hours with them. On this particular day, I was sitting on the ground playing with flash, seeing that many types of grass projected on the animals, creating some really beautiful shades and shadows. I obtained this after 4 or 5 shots on this really patient cow.
During a summer nightwalk, I saw a boy who was playing alone next to a tree, jumping and trying to grab some lianas.
This kind of final result could be obtained only with a flashlight because the spot was totally in the dark. In this kind of unusual situation you have to be lucky with the one shot, because after the first one, people stop to act natural.
I took this shot in 2019. While waiting to get on a plane, I was sitting on a bench being attracted by the sight of this statue. This is the first shot where I understood the effect of the combination between movement and partially lit areas.

Thank you Marco and welcome to the Full Frontal family!

Marcos Portfolio and Social Media

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