The Rome Spring Shoot will take place from Thursday, May 18 - Saturday, May 20 in the heart of Rome, the eternal city. Plan on arriving Wednesday, May 17 and departing on Sunday May 21.
Our program will feature Leica on Loan, three scenic Photo Walks with assignments, a Visit and reception at Leica Store Rome, Photo Review, and four fabulous speakers. Scroll down to read details.
Click here to order the t-shirt!
Hotel Accommodations: The LSI has reserved rooms at the Le Méridien Visconti Rome hotel Once you have registered, you will be emailed a confirmation of registration and links to make your hotel reservations at a special LSI rate.
Plan on arriving on Wednesday, May 17 and departing on Sunday, May 21.
Register below.
Program
All sessions will be held in the Visconti Plenary room, located in the lower level of the Le Meriden Visconti Rome.
For a list of attendees, click here.
To view/download all Photo Walks click here.
Wednesday, May 17, 2023
Arrival day for Participants.
19:30 Informal Meet and Greet (Hotel Lobby).
Thursday, May 18, 2023
08:00 POSTPONED - Leica on Loan - bad weather delayed the Leica team, so we won’t be able to offer this until Friday morning
9:00 -9:15 AM President’s Welcome/Conference Chair Welcome/International Leica Society Update
9:15-10:00 Introduction of Attendees
10:00 – 10:15 Break
10:15-11:15 Light of Seduction with Milan Swolfs
This work is my homage to women, taking us back to the forgotten times or the roaring twenties, old Hollywood glamor with a mix of 50's pin-ups. Think about flapper dresses, red lipstick, corsets, champagne and cabaret!”, he says in a statement, adding that playing with light “teases the visitors with scenes of seduction”. “As a spectator, do we feel like a 'voyeur' caught in the middle of something, or what happens next?
11:15 – 12:15 Unfamiliar with Simona Ghizzoni
In my photographic practice, autobiography has always been of great importance. In fact, my production revolves around two major themes: the social sphere of women and the private sphere of self-portraiture. In this talk, I will share with you two of my best-known works: Odd Days, a documentary work on eating disorders, and Isola, my latest project, which uses self-portraiture to narrate the story of my relationship with my family and the environment in which we live.
12:15 -12:30 Photo Assignment Explanations (Milan)
Progam Chair Milan Swolfs takes us through the theme for creating memorable images with three scenic photo walks.
12:30 – 14:30 Lunch provided in Latitude 41
14:30-17:30 Photo Walk
17:30 Dinner on your own
Friday, May 19, 2023
8:00 Leica on Loan
8:45-9:00 Announcements
9:00 – 10:00 Luck, Heresy and First Stage Thinking with Jono Slack
An examination of the photographic techniques we take for granted, and how changing them can result in better pictures and a better shooting experience.
10 – 10:15 Break
10:15 - 11:15 How to visualize and narrate the invisible? with Marco Casino
Retracing a decade-long professional career in between photography and videography, Marco Casino will talk and share the genesis, development and publication behind his working method. Whether it’s with a rangefinder, archival material, forensic iconography, drone perspective, satellite imagery or neural networks image analysis, Casino practice focuses on how to visualize and create visual narratives that seek to be able to grasp the endless nuances and details of phenomena born in the internet and real-time information society.
11:15- 12:00 Anatomy of a Project – Richard Rejino
The importance of having an ongoing personal project cannot be understated. In this session, Richard Rejino will explore how other creative mediums can enhance your photographic storytelling. Using his highly successful “What Music Means to Me Project” he will illustrate how he combined his three greatest passions, music, photography and writing, and turned them into a book, a museum exhibit, and a means to communicate the transformative power of music. He will also show and discuss project from other photographers.
12:00 – 13:30 Lunch Provided at Latitude 41
13:30 – 17:00 Photo Walk starting from hotel
17:30 Reception at Leica Store Roma
Leica Store Roma welcomes LSI attendees with a reception. The address is: Leica Store Rome, Via dei Due Macelli 57, 00187 Roma. Click here for a map from the hotel to the store.
18:30 Dinner on your own
Saturday, May 20
8:00 Leica on Loan
8:45-9:00 Morning Announcements
9:00-10:30 The SL System with Stephan Schultz, Leica AG
In this presentation, Stephan Schultz will discuss how the SL system came to be and and his vision to make it happen. He will also discuss about how strategic ideas as well how the link to the L-Mount Alliance evolved.
10:30-10:45 Break
10:45 – 13:30 Photo Walk and Lunch on your own
13:30 - 14:30 Selecting/Editing Your Images
14:30 – 16:30 Sharing of Images with Commentary – Milan Swolfs and Jono Slack
18:30 Cocktails (cash bar)
19:00 Banquet (must be pre-registered) - Latitude 41 Restaurant
ROME Spring Shoot Speakers
Marco Casino (Caserta, 1986) is a cross-media documentary photographer & videographer specialized in long-form social reportages. In the last decade Casino covered stories in Italy, Europe, Africa and South America, often exploring unrepresented contemporary social issues with narratives standing at the intersection of humanist photography, groundbreaking contemporary technological innovations & the internet culture. His works appeared in news outlets like National Geographic, BBC, CNN, The New York Times, The Guardian, Internazionale and some of his pictures and videos have been exhibited in spaces like the Pulitzer Hall - Brown Institute for Media Innovation of New York, the Royal Albert Hall of London, the Manuel Rivera-Ortiz gallery of Les Rencontres d’Arles. He’s been recognized by awards and grants like the World Press Photo (2014 - 1° place Short Feature Multimedia category), selected twice as “30 under 30” by Magnum Photos.
Brand ambassador & media creator for Leica Camera since 2012, Casino have also been working on commercial assignments, cooperating with creative agencies and luxury brands like Havas, TBWA, Sky Arts, Magnolia Digital, Lamborghini, Valentino, Huawei, Motorola, Samsung, Nautor’s Swan, Ducati. Based in Milano and available worldwide for visual productions, editorial assignments, developing ideas together with clients or unrepresented communities looking for communication aids.
Part of his archive is distributed by Archive.luz.it.
Simona Ghizzoni (1977) is a photographer and visual activist for women's rights. Her work is strongly rooted in personal experience, which Ghizzoni reworks and interprets through photography. Her production revolves around two major strands, which often intersect: the social dimension of women and the private dimension of self-portraits. With her first work, Odd Days, she tells in a series of portraits the difficult path of healing from the eating disorder. While her images are often of social inspiration, Ghizzoni tends to employ a personal and participatory narrative, sometimes even fantastic, that arises from the intimate relationship he creates with the subjects. In the series of self-portraits the recurring element is a visceral relationship with the environment, which alternates autobiography and fiction.
Twice awarded the World Press Photo for her work on the condition of women, her work has received numerous awards: Poyi, The Aftermath Project, Burn Magazine Emerging Photographer Grant, BBC Arabic Film and Documentary Festival, Margaret Mead Film Festival, Sony World Photography Awards, among others. Her work has been widely presented in solo and group exhibitions, including the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Paris Photo, Photo Espana, Rome Auditorium, Athens Photo Festival, Ex-Mattatoio Rome. In 2022 she is the president of the jury for Europe at the World Press Photo. Ghizzoni is a TEDX speaker and regularly holds lectures in various European schools and universities. She is co-founder of MAPS Images, she is represented in Italy by MLB Gallery.
Jonathan Slack grew up in the seaside town of St Ives in the UK. His father was a doctor, sculptor and a photographer and was a friend to many of the artist community including Barbara Hepworth and Patrick Heron.
Jonathan is a botanist by training and a software developer by practice, but photography has been his obsession since his twenties when he gave up painting. It even survived some work in PR earlier in the century. If asked nicely enough he will still do weddings and event photography .
He has been testing Leica cameras since 2007, beginning with the M8 and including all the major releases since then. During this time he has come to understand that Leica really is dedicated to the essence of photography, and that the M11 is the pinnacle of reductionist functionality.
Articles and photographs have been published widely including the LHSA Viewfinder magazine, GQ magazine, LFI, various newspapers and magazines and on many websites including his own.
Richard Rejino is the Executive Director of the Leica Society International. He is the author of What Music Means to Me, published by Hal Leonard Corporation. His writing and photography has been published in Viewfinder, Leica NA Blog, Music Inc., American Music Teacher, The Piano Teacher, and other publications. He is currently the Executive Editor for Pony Express(ions), SMU’s Graduate of Liberal Studies literary online journal. His photography has been featured at the Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad, California, and he is the 2015 winner of the LSI Annual Photo Contest.
Stephan Schultz of Leica AG is responsible for Leicas S and SL System. His has an engineering degree and marketing education. Mr. Schultz joined Leica in 2007, bringing almost 20 years of professional experience from former jobs at Philips/Pentax/Thomson Multimedia into the company. He proudly boasts that he got his first camera in 1972 and his first Leica (M6) in 1989.
Milan Swolfs is most known for his fine art portrait photography work in the burlesque and vintage styles. His work is a throwback to the memorable Hollywood glamour of the 20s and 30s, often portraying women in a daring and sexy way, but always delicately and glamorously. Milan is an ambassador for Leica Camera Belgium and France. In 2022 he had an exhibition "Light of Seduction'" at the Leica Gallery in Porto. His work has been featured in Viewfinder, LFI magazine and the Leica Blog and he is the official photographer for the biggest Burlesque shows in Europe. Milan also did the official Marketing photos for the re-release of the Noctilux 50mm f1.2. Milan is also a Leica collector focusing on vintage lenses.