Life as a Colorblind Photographer

All images by Francesco Nacchia. Used with permission.

“It’s not easy to explain,” says Photographer Francesco Nacchia; a colorblind shooter who has been interviewed here before. “I will make an example, when you look at a yellow flower, you know that flower is yellow because your mind recognizes that color and binds it to the flower, for me that instead is color-blind, when I look at a yellow flower I am never convinced that it really is, it could be green or orange, the same thing for all the other colors, I see the colors but I’m not sure that they are really the same.”

Francesco is living proof that color doesn’t need to be one of the biggest and best parts of a photo simply because he doesn’t see it. In fact, he’s more about working with shades and tones in a photo.

Phoblographer: In our previous interview we talked about how your photos are very painterly, and a part of this is how you choose to frame food and subjects. So where did you learn about this type of stuff and how you do apply it to your work? Is it all about working with shades and tones?

Francesco: The beauty of photography is that you can shoot an object at thousand times and it will be always in a different way, when I think about what I want to photograph I never have a clear idea but I try different solutions and is thus, by chance, I matched the shadows to objects using the contrast of light, most of the time I am surprised how the nuances make it different and mysterious even a simple pear, I have a passion for pears.

Phoblographer: Do you ever use flash or artificial light with your scenes to create the images that you specifically want? What do you tend to keep in mind when it comes to lighting in a scene?

Francesco: For my images I prefer not to use the flash or artificial light, usually prefer to shoot pictures with the sunlight especially early in the morning when the light is not very warm, this is a rule for me in order to have pictures Color not too strong.

Phoblographer: It looks like textures play a big part of your photography. Would you say that this is true? What do you think about them in an image?

Francesco: Most of the time I try to be creative hoping that the picture may be natural that is why we often do not edit the photos to give a sense of naturalness.

Phoblographer: What’s the editing process like for you when you’re putting an image together for a final export?

Francesco: Each photo has its own procedure, some prefer to leave them to the natural without any changes, many others are being exported and edited with programs like Lightroom or Photoshop, but not always, a lot of photos taken with the phone are changed through the use of apps like vscocam, Snapseed, or EyeEm that contain many really effective editing tools.