Personal Best vol.20 | Luca Bracali

29.03.2019

Written by... Luca Bracali

Ha viaggiato in 145 paesi, è autore di 14 libri e vincitore di 14 premi in concorsi fotografici internazionali. Dal 2008 è membro di APECS (Association of Polar Early Career Scientists) e dal 2015 collabora con IASC (International Arctic Science Commitee) per i suoi contributi su ambiente pubblicato dai media. Nel 2009 è stato l'unico giornalista a raggiungere il Polo Nord geografico sugli sci. Nel 2010 Bracali debutta nel mondo della fine-art photography e le sue immagini vengono esposte, come personali, in musei e gallerie di Roma, Sofia, Kiev, Odessa, Copenaghen, Yangon, Montreal e New York, oltre che a Bruxelles, presso la sede del Parlamento Europeo. Ha firmato 210 servizi come regista per Rai 1, è documentarista per Rai 2 e Rai 3 ed è stato ospite in 50 trasmissioni e TG delle reti Rai come esploratore e story-teller. Ha firmato diciotto reportage su National Geographic e le sue immagini sono state pubblicate da New York Post, USA Today Post, Fox News, Lens Culture, PetaPixel, Daily Express, Daily Star, Daily Telegraph e The Sun. Dal 2017 diviene ambasciatore a vita dell’associazione no-profit “Save the Planet”. Il Minor Planet Center di Cambridge ha intitolato a suo nome il 198.616esimo asteroide scoperto.

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luca_Bracali

Cari amici Fuji, ho avuto modo di testare a lungo la X-T2 in occasione di alcuni miei ultimi reportage fotografici e documentari video. In Irlanda a maggio, in Scozia a giugno ed in Alaska ad agosto. In 30 anni di attività e in 138 paesi visitati mi sono specializzato nella fotografia di viaggio e di natura in tutte le sue sfumature ed accezioni, quindi paesaggi, volti ed animali.

Dal 2013 sono testimonial Fujifilm, fra i primissimi in Italia, utilizzando alcuni modelli di punta fra cui la X-Pro1, la X-E2, la X-T1 e la X-Pro2. E mai come questa volta, utilizzando la X-T2 appunto, ho avuto la netta sensazione di avere un oggetto fra le mani capace di segnare un punto fermo in questa furibonda rincorsa tecnologica.

Ma quali sono i punti di forza di questa super-mirrorless?

In termini pratici, fotografando ad esempio le rocce esagonali di Giant’s Causewy o quelle a picco delle Cliff of Moher, gli insediamenti preistorici delle isole Aran come quelli delle Orcadi, la leggibilità della trama, del tessuto roccioso, come i delicati chiari/scuri delle pietre, sono sempre rimasti netti e precisi, restituendo all’immagine la stessa tonalità della scena ripresa. Oltretutto, non amando affatto la post-produzione, lascio le impostazioni della camera di default perché colori, contrasto, saturazione e gamma dinamica mi sembrano più che soddisfacenti già così.

Agli alti iso la risposta è ottima, il rumore è molto scarso anche nelle zone in ombra e, laddove compare, resta comunque molto uniforme pertanto nella foto in notturna, senza cavalletto, si traduce in un vantaggio tangibile.

Veniamo adesso all’autofocus, da sempre uno dei punti deboli delle mirrorless, ma con la X-T2 si fa in fretta a cambiare idea. I 91 punti di messa a fuoco estendibili a 325, difficilmente mollano il bersaglio, sia nel tracking che nel panning e nel cuore del Katmai, come nel Denali, hanno fatto sempre il loro dovere.

Voglio concludere le mie impressioni spendendo due parole sul video di questa nuova ammiraglia, la prima della serie X a supportare registrazioni video in 4K, con un bitrate di 100 Mbps. La qualità dell’immagine video è piuttosto notevole a mio avviso, sia nei contrasti che in una trama molto dettagliata, con ben 9 effetti pellicola disponibili. E per darvi un’idea della qualità, ho passato due miei servizi interamente girati con la X-T2 in Irlanda e Scozia su Easy Driver, la rubrica settimanale di Rai 1 che curo come regista. E posso garantirvi, ma potete vederlo anche voi stessi guardando le puntate su Rai Replay, che fra le XD-Cam da oltre 30.000 euro che utilizziamo solitamente per girare i servizi e la X-T2 non c’è differenza di immagine anzi, sia io che tre dei miei colleghi, abbiamo apprezzato ben più la qualità di questa piccola mirrorless che ha pure l’uscita hdmi e si può registrare su hd esterno in 4K senza nessuna compressione.

Gears:

FUJIFILM X-H1
FUJIFILM X-Pro2
FUJIFILM X-T2
FUJIFILM X-T1
XF10-24mmF4 R OIS
XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR
XF50-140mmF2.8 R LM OIS WR
XF100-400mmF4.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR

Arctic. A world to discover

In 2003, after visiting Antarctica for the first time, I began developing a “green conscience” without belonging to any political party or joining any environmental movements.

At that time, there was discussion of of the hole in the ozone layer, first discovered at Antarctica’s Vernadksy Research Base where I went to cover my first assignment with a more scientific focus. I found myself wanting to know more – to fully understand how accurate the journalists’ reports were and whether the earth was truly in danger. Sadly, I came to realize, the warnings were accurate and dire then and even more so now.

Hudson Bay, Canada. Mother bear and cub, walking in an unusually unfrozen Hudson Bay that should be totally ice-covered this time of year. Instead of a seal, she’s eating a crab.
Svalbard island. During late summer when bears typically haven’t eaten for months, they are costantly seeking for food and seem losing their energy even while walking.

It is the Arctic and Antarctic regions, after all, that are most sensitive to climate change. They are known as the beating heart of our planet – and it was from these remote and boundless regions that the first cry of planetary alarm was sounded.

Hudson Bay, Canada. On Bryan’s property bears and dogs live together, sharing the same area. Bears are often used to playing with the dogs, hugging them and unsuccesfully trying to scare them (check the dog’s tail!).
Svalbard island. Infallible swimmer. After having climbed onto a slab of ice in the middle of the frozen sea, the bear starts sniffing for food.

Five years after that first trip I went to Canada, followed by Alaska in 2008 to work on my personal project “Arctic Sun on my Path” where I spent 35 days in the tundra to photograph polar bear pups as they emerged from their dens for the first time. The expedition and research was also aimed at studying global warming and the impacts on delicate arctic ecosystems.

Hudson Bay, Canada. A snowstorm foretells that the Hudson Bay will soon freeze. In few days, the bears will start their march.
Hudson Bay, Canada. When a nearby lake begins freezing, polar bears can finally walk on their favourite surface.

In the following years I deepened my research working alongside American scientists, then Russians and finally Italians. I documented and photographed the permafrost in Alaska, the ice at the geographic North Pole and samples of air aerosols at the Svalbard islands – and I was among the first photojournalists allowed to enter and document the usually inaccessible Svalbard Global Seed Vault.

Hudson Bay, Canada. Bears are used to fighting almost every day. For fun, food or to compete for a female.

Carbon pollution is immensely destructive to the earth, yet man never tires of producing it in every form, through every possible and imaginable means.

Hudson Bay, Canada. These shots worth more than every word on the subject, even for nonbelievers of global warming.

Photography is an essential practice for me, not only as a means of expression, but also and above all, communication. Through the evocative power of photography, the most universal language that exists, I am able to convey experiences and emotions that allow me to bring about greater understanding and deeper respect for our planet and each other. Through photography, I can speak directly to the hearts of all people, inspiring joy and sparking important conversations across cultures and languages.

Godafoss, Iceland. As temperatures rise, frozen waterfalls such as Godafoss will show another face.

In spite of what is happening to our planet, my style is to always show the beautiful side of nature and never the destruction – to focus on the earth’s grandeur and beauty that remains, preserving in images what may soon be lost to greed.

Jokulsarlon, Iceland. It looks like a wonderful show but it’s actually nature’s disaster. At Diamond Beach, thousands of icebergs once gathered every year as a result of Vatnajokull, Europe’s biggest glacier, which is constantly losing ice. It has lost 100 meters annually over the past 80 years.

Within twenty years the world will no longer be the same, but the evocative force of photography will continue to tell us the story. The arctic and its silent sovereignty of the ice will soon become a memory.

Ballstad, Lofoten islands. It took two hundred shots to get a star trail image with northern lights like this. Rather than opening the shutter speed for over 1 hour in a cold climate, it’s recommended that you use the built-in interval-timer function on the X and GFX series.

After 27 years of photography with SLRs, I decided to sell all of my gear in 2013 (a set worth 40,000 euros that included everything from 8 to 800mm) in order to challenge myself with mirrorless. I knew then that mirrorless represented the future and I recognized that starting earlier, when many remained skeptical about this new camera technology, would give me a critical advantage by forcing me to adapt quickly to a new style of travel and photography. I started with the X-Pro1, then with X-E2, then the X-T1, the X-T2 and the X-T3, but also the X-H1 and the GFX 50S. Regarding optics, I use the XF8-16, the XF16-55, the XF50-140, XF100-400 — and sometimes the XF16mmF1.4 and XF56mmF1.2. I love the H1 for stability on a 5-axis that is useful in still photography and extraordinary for shooting video. I like the T3 for the back-light sensor and for night shots and, especially for capturing the aurora borealis, as it offers a welcome advantage. I love the GFX series with which I photographed Norway’s Lofoten Archipelago, as well as Iceland. The stunning quality achieved with this medium format camera made me realize that I had arrived at another critical point in the realm of gear. And I would need to convert again!

Svalbard island. Nordenskjøldbree is a perennial glacier. The hidden ice caves near its bay are truly a revelation. The ceiling is covered with a thousand blue bubbles. Because oxygen is trapped in the ice crystals, the diaphanous light spreads and is reflected in every direction.

Disko Bay, Greenland. Eqip Sermia is considered a “calving glacier” precisely because ice blocks of various sizes come off much more frequently than on other glaciers.

Disko Bay, Greenland. At its deepest known measurement the Jakobshavns Glacier was recorded at 2,500 meters deep, but in the last 10 years it has dropped by 100 meters and retreated by 15 kilometers.

Disko Bay, Greenland. The gigantic sculptures of ice appear motionless in the sea. In actuality, the icebergs are moving at speeds of 17 kilometers per day.

Gears:

Arctic. A world to discover

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