"Find something worth fighting for and turn your dreams into reality.
Photographer Beatrice Salomone is unique in her ability to create such simple but striking photographs. Her stellar editing and compositional skills create portraits that are both unique and engaging without being overly ambitious. Beatrice’s skills reflect the best in portrait photography: an ability to create dynamic portraits that show a creative vision while still demonstrating great photographic skill. Her talent hasn’t been developed without hard work, however. After over a decade of practice in photography and lots of influence from the world around her, her creative vision and ability to make it come to life was well earned.
Beatrice began to take photos when she was only eight years old, starting, like many of us “with a red Nikon Coolpix my parents gave me as a Christmas present.” It took time, however, for this to develop into a passion. “At first it was just something to have fun with and my main subjects were natural elements and other people’s dogs. As I grew up, photography became my biggest passion and I fell in love with portraiture photography.”
Initially, as she progressed through High School, it was difficult to balance this interest in photography with the rest of her life. Developing this ability to balance these is something that she continues to this day.“When I was in high school it was pretty hard to balance school/private life and photography so I tried to shoot whenever I had time and a cool idea. I do most of the school stuff during the week so I can shoot my projects during the weekends.”
Beatrice lives in Rome, Italy, and being in a city known as the birthplace of so much influential artwork, inspiration flows all around her. “Rome is a city full of art and history,” she says, “so it had a great impact on my work especially at the beginning because my city offers a lot of different locations, like museums and gardens (just to name a few). So sometimes the beauty of these places inspired some of the shootings I had in the past!”
Her inspiration is not just limited to her city. Beatrice goes to the Rome University of Fine Arts (RUFA), studying photography. Having this concentrated time allows her “fully focus on [her] passion,” she says. She was also able to explore different techniques to find what she liked and didn’t like in portrait photography. “In the first year of Uni I focused on portraiture by myself whenever I could because the only portraits I took were in my school’s studios and I honestly prefer natural light over studio light! Some of those portraits were taken with an analog camera and that was my first time shooting film. That experience changed my mindset, because having a short number of shots is very challenging and it makes you think more about how you want your shots to come out! I definitely would like to shoot more with a film camera in the future!”
Through school, Beatrice has also found new opportunities to explore creatively. “Now I’m in the second grade and I’m falling in love even more with photography, because I’m doing a very personal project (I can’t tell anything since it’s not ready yet) using a different style and photographic language from my usual and, thanks to that, my creative process is changing a lot!”
Her time at University has allowed Beatrice to look forward to the future and reflect on what she’s learned. “I want photography to be my future full time job so I want to keep on shooting to improve and reach my goal! I’d tell [someone interested in photography] that practice is the best way to improve and that a photographer is not defined by his/her gear, so if you’re a beginner just shoot with what you already have. I’ve learned by myself that, if you love something, nothing is impossible and unreachable so just find something worth fighting for and turn your dreams into reality.”
You can check out more of Beatrice's work here: https://www.instagram.com/bea.slmn/ Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
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