Alessia: Overgrown

Wild fields, bare concrete, gold at her throat. Direct gaze in dappled light. A red bench blazing in the green. Nine frames of quiet confidence and summer heat. The session moved through several locations within walking distance — a red-painted metal bench surrounded by dense greenery, patches of dappled sunlight through overhead foliage, a rough stone wall that dropped the mood from warm to something more brooding, and a concrete wall with gravel at its base. Each stop changed the character of the frame without changing the subject. That's the point of moving through a space rather than staking out one spot — the same person reads differently against lush green than against raw concrete. The mood shifted naturally across the set. Early frames feel intimate and thoughtful, with the dappled light doing soft things. By the end there's a more assertive quality — the low-angle concrete shots have a graphic weight that the garden frames don't. Some went black and white where the color was getting in the way; the rest stayed because the summer palette — red bench, green leaves, gold jewelry — was doing too much to lose. Technically it was all about shallow depth of field and available light — keeping the gear simple so the interaction stayed natural. Alessia had a way of finding good light instinctively, moving to the spots where the shadows and highlights did interesting things without being told. That makes the photographer's job easier and the frames better. Nine frames from a summer session that felt easy from the start. "Alessia was so good at finding the light, even when it was totally broken up by the leaves. That red bench really popped, though – a little surprise in all the green."