I have known Pina for... well some 30 years now. We met in Los Angeles. We both came from Europe at the same time. We became friends instantly. You had the Roman extravaganza I loved to have nearby in Los Angeles. We were both impatient in front of the cultural desert in LA back in the early 80s - this has of course changed considerably since then of course. We both started European-flavored inspired businesses (for fun)... While I worked in film post-production, Pina opened her photography studio in Beverly Hills. We inaugurated it in April 1988, I was 9 month pregnant with my first child then and I do have very fond memories of those days when we could have a baby shower with Tarryn Power, or come across Dany Houston at your place, it was always casual, simple, normal, bon enfant as we say in French. No frills. We made amazing tortellini di aragosta at home while talking business. We made huge quantities of them :-) It was always about life. We had our sons at about the same time. You raised Alessio as a real Italian mom, I raised my sons as a French mom. I have had the regular privilege of casually looking at the so many splendid pictures you took dear Pina -- (literally hundreds and hundreds of them at the studio I can witness this, in boxes overflowing from cabinets, everywhere) , Carole Bouquet, Ingrid Bergman, Sofia Loren, Fellini... I must say Pina has an extra-ordinary gaze on beauty. She had it 30 years ago freshly arrived from Italy. Being Italian, Roman to boot, bestowed you already with some considerable advantage -- injustice for us all -- as it is dear Pina a great cultural genetic advantage. It is an absolute gift from the Gods. You were born in a world where cities are open-air live museums, ruins are monumentally romantic, you pass by Emperors statues every single day, you breathe Michael-Angelos architecture, it runs in your blood. Women are absolutely beautiful in Italy, the older they get, the more beautiful they become. Not because of plastic surgery, not because of the expensive designer clothes they cannot purchase, not because they stay young looking forever while indulging in eating pasta twice a day and stay thin. They ARE beautiful at any age because they simply ARE. They authorize themselves to just BE completely quintessentially who they are. Any foreigner can observe this on any street in Milan, Florence, Venice, Rome, etc... just sit, wait and observe. Women there dont have private coaches, yet the force of their presence it startling. You understood this from growing up in your country dear Pina, words cannot pinpoint the meaning of beauty, gait, pizzazz and French word allure do not encapsulate it all. Your great philologist, Umberto Eco, wrote a superb book on beauty, and one on ugliness because both are connected in dialectics. Italians are gifted with rare combinations of grace, style, personality, vibrancy, beauty, agility, sbrigatività and the concept of sprezzatura that goes back to the Renaissance. It is therefore a difficult unsaid notion to approach for non-Italian aficionados. It is mostly implicit but it IS. Pina you were naturally drawn to become the first female still photographer in the Italian movie industry. You capture the quintessence of beauty wherever you go and most importantly, you are now able to communicate and conceptualize it with a certain degree of authority the Italian way. Your métier (in the French sense of avoir du métier ) as a major photographer, combined with the épaisseur of your life, the research you led, in philosophy, art history, etc. delving into it to add depth to this universal question about the self and its many reflections all converged to what you call your masterpiece dear Pina. cara mia. I am proud and very happy for you, not surprised because I knew could expect this from you... Complimenti cara mia... and please, never ever lose your original accent. This is your authentic signature my friend. ======= Pina Di Colas career as an internationally-recognized photographer in the entertainment industry has spanned 30 years; she has an archive of over 50,000 photos. Her professional career began while working on the set of Amarcord. Di Cola developed a friendship with maestro Fellini, became a recognized photographer in the Italian film industry, working on over 35 Italian films and closely with directors Pasquale Festa Campanile, Vincent Minnelli, Brian De Palma, Franco Zeffirelli, Gianfranco De Bosio, Martin Ritts, Massimo Troisi, George Kennedy, Maximilian Schell among others. She also operated a studio in Rome where she specialized in celebrity photography and was a highly-sought-after European photographer. Her work was also featured in major European magazines such as Oggi, CHI, Gente, Diva, Hola, Hello, Paris Match and many more. Di Cola then moved to Los Angeles, California, thus broadening her access to celebrity clientele. Her intellectual curiosity and the nature of her work prompted her to explore the range of human facial expressions and just how individuals perceive themselves. Throughout her career as a photographer, Di Cola established relationships with important personalities through a unique warmth and sensitivity that elicited clients’ personal and genuine beauty. Her portraits reflect the care, consideration, and personalization that have ensured her success as a photographer. On the relationship between photographer and client, Pina believes that “the way someone presents him or herself to the camera, and the photographer’s response to that presence, is what it’s all about.”
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 22:41:30 +0000
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