Inspiration Feeder: Matteo Mescalchin

Our “Inspiration Feeder” presents to you short interviews with interesting visual artists from around the globe. Today in focus: Matteo Mescalchin.

How old are you?

I’m 44 years old.

Where do you come from?

I’m from Padua, Italy, where I currently live while running a small production studio cofounded with my bro Andrea Mescalchin back in 1997.

How long have you been doing photography?

Although I started my career as videographer at a young age, I’ve been focusing on lighting since day one of my experience that today counts 23 years in the industry.

How would you define your style?

That’s a good question. It’s kind of looking yourself in the mirror.. you’ll never find a final answer untill you die (touch wood 🙂 ).

Anyway, even considering my style like something evolving and maturing overtime, my photography takes lighting as visual interpretation of my subject. In other words: lighting is my main creative tool representing my layer of intervention over the reality of a subject. I modify light sources of different kind and shape to creatively express mood, feelings, focus, beauty or other visual suggestions. I created my own method that can be summarized down to the acromin #diqccp lighting. You can find out more on this on my website or following my feeds but basicly I designed a workflow able to take confusion and time wasting out of way. It’s my approach to light any situation from available light to complex set ups with 10 or more strobes on the scene. It goes step by step all the way from why I need a light on a given position, to how I modify it and adjust its level. Each letter of the acronim works like a check list. At first glance my portfolio appears to be pretty mixed with very different subjects from a variety of industries and therefore it might appear not very specialized in any area. In facts, my area of interest is exploring lighting across different subjects. Beside lighting anything however, I do have selected a few subjects as my favourite to work with like craftsmanship, sport, hand made goods and so on.

How long do you think it took you to find your personal style of shooting?

I think personal style is something I developed over a few years but I’m still working on it with the goal of enjoying the journey more than defining a destination. As our personalities,

I believe personal style is strongly influenced by our experiences both positive and negative ones. The more we expose to something, the more we learn and the faster we develop. So it’s interesting to me seeing how many experiences I face as photographer. I think it’s a great way to explore our world and learn from it.

An other distintive aspect of my photography in facts is my team-based approach. I think most photographers are used to work by themselves and this leads to technical choices and workflows compatible with a ‘single person operation’. Thanks to my personal story, I’ve been used to teamwork a lot. Teamworking is something I see as an expansion of my potentials. Collaborating with other qualified professionals means piling up our skills. Today, I can dive into a shoot on location or stay focused on a long hours studio session counting on my assistant, editor and prooduction manager working with me. I can assure playing in a team can multiply assets and it does keep you more flexible and open minded.

What would you say is the thing that most inspires you? / What is your main source of inspiration?

My main source of inspiration is work. Not talking aout my work of course. I’m talking about ‘work’ as a subject. I’ve always been fascinated by specialized workers that perform at a high level in doing thier job, whatever it is. It can be a woodwork, a sculpture, or even a piece of technology, what trigger my attention as a photographer is being able to visually represent people skills in doing what they do. This is the reason why I’m interested in design, craftsmanship, but also sport, art as well as all processes involving the creation of something.

To have a better idea of this concept please visit my #gondola400 project available on my website where I mention about my original approach but I also give credit to my team and partners.