Giulio and Chicca called me for a couple shooting in a location that they really love, the Parco degli Acquedotti in Rome.
This park is part of the ”Parco regionale suburbano dell'Appia antica” and it is 240 hectares wide. Six out of the eleven ancient aqueducts in Rome are crossing this area, and the imposing ruins of part of these make this location incredibly evocative! It’s no coincidence that the Parco degli Acquedotti is the chosen destination of several citizens that want to train outside, while being immersed in an atmosphere that reminds the greatness of the ancient Rome!
We met at the park in the afternoon, and after a quick chat we decided that we would make the first part of the shooting in natural light, whereas for the second part we would use an off-camera flash on a tripod with an Octabox to have a softer light on the subjects.
We shot the first pics close to the Casal Roma Vecchia, an old building that was built in the XIII century in order to defend and control the aqueducts Claudio and Marcio.
I had already planned to dedicate the last light of the afternoon, which usually gives life to the most saturated colors, to that part of the park that offers the aqueducts as a background. Since we had still some time before that, I proposed to shoot some pics while walking through the park.
So we had a very nice walk and we arrived to the final location; the ambient light was already softer, we just had the time to shoot the last two pics with natural light and then I mounted the flash on the tripod, to start the second part of the shooting.
Giulio e Chicca immediately got acquainted with the presence of the flash on the tripod, and after a first curiosity form their side, we went on with the shooting in total relax. The use of the flash allowed me to light the subjects with soft light, while achieving a stronger saturation of the colors in the background.
A tree with a bench proved to be very useful as a location for our last pics, where we used the last light before sunset.
Once again, in little more than one hour we managed to shoot a few dozens of pics in an incredible location, that you could find only in am cal city like Rome!