Just a perfect day
Roberta Ridolfi’s pictures are just like a perfect day: fresh, bright and spontaneous.
Each image is powerful as only a smile can be; it is delicate and yet, vibrant at the same time.
As a photographer, Roberta is equally comfortable with fashion, music and portraits, but it is definitely through fashion photography that she finds a way to express her vision of the world, and what she likes most: to document a day, in the life of a youthful girl.
The girls in her pictures are often young models (who she selects with care for each photo shoot) or talented rising artists caught, most of the time, in this incredible time in life where the subtle line between adolescence and adulthood, fades away.
Roberta captures, with her camera, these girls’ fresh approach to life, all the dreams in their eyes and their great potential. She seems, somehow, to recall this special time in each picture.
But what does it mean to her to take pictures? “I can’t really say”, she starts “I never planned to become a photographer, it's more something I felt like doing and now I can't live without. It's my way of seeing the world”.
Furthermore, when I ask her what drove her into fashion photography in the first place, she says: “I guess that was a natural evolution of my style...I love documentary photography and I like treating fashion in that way, just with clothes and good looking people”.
In fact brands and labels are there, as a necessary addition, but they always fit somehow with the whole character of the image. Everything seems to flow very naturally.
The location for each photo shoot is another important element. She has a real passion for finding new location spots; her eyes are always searching for the next inspiration: a room with beautiful wallpaper, a house full of crazy and interesting objects, a stripped bed, a white wall or a street corner.
Roberta’s ability is to extrapolate the character from objects and places of everyone’s daily life. This natural composition contributes to create the marvelous uniqueness of a moment, which she catches in every click.
Looking at her pictures, I find myself asking her to imagine a room and describe what she sees inside. “My bedroom in the early afternoon on a summer's day...” is her quick answer.
Roberta’s bedroom is actually in London. She moved here from Rome in 1999. Since then she often travels between these two cities. I am wondering how she feels about them: “London and Rome are very different cities and I get a very different feeling from both. Rome is where I grew up and it’s very beautiful and will always be part of me, but London is where I decided I wanted to live and where most of my ideas and inspiration come from...there is so much energy and creativity here that I would really be missing it if I was living in Rome”.
Just recently Roberta got really inspired by American series of shops, streets and landscapes. She spent some time in New York, as a change, after her London life became a bit too quiet. Suddenly, her senses got energized by this very intense and vibrant city. She felt in love with it.
We can tell that the most recent photos of Roberta are the beginning of a new (more conscious) chapter in her stories ….and we are definitely going to be there, ready to ‘look’ at them.
Text: Alessandra Migani
Photos: Roberta Ridolfi
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