Piece of Cake Gallery
Naples, Italy 2015
® Agnieszka Pilecka
It was an unforgettable magical time spent in Naples. A big thanks to Ernesto Bazan with his inexhaustible energy and for sharing his photographic intimacy. He is a wonderful teacher. The time spent shooting for me was a great learning experience. But the time devoted to conversations about photography was priceless. I have met new fantastic people: Luisa Vasquez, Peter Dobis, Jacek Konieczny, Salvatore Esposito and his wife Valeria, Andrea de Franciscis with whom I hope to keep in touch for a long time.
The passion for photography connected all of us. We managed to capture photographic moments and shared them with the other students. Our morning meetings editing photos from the previous day gave us a lot of positive feedback. We were all together and yet each of us came up with totally diverse images. It was fantastic!
Agnieszka Pilecka
® Jacek_Konieczny
Intensity. This word describes the time spent in Naples in the most proper way. The intensity of city’s life, with its loud traffic, the shouts of street vendors, quarrels, bursts of laughter. The intensity of flavors and tastes, the coffee incredible aroma, wines bouquet, omnipresent graffiti. But the most important thing was the intensity of the intellectual adventure. It was not just a photographic workshop where a master says: “I like this, I don’t like that”.
We probed together into the mystery of photography and we were doing it not only during everyday editing sessions but also (and perhaps first of all) out in the field. We were visiting the most characteristic spots of the city and its suburbs, full of emotions and symbols, where the spirit of the place peeped out from every corner. But what I liked most were our disputes (mainly at the various restaurants lavishly laid tables) about photography, history, art, philosophy, and cinematography, about life.
Each passing day I understood better and better why so many students return to your workshop for many years Ernesto and become your friends. It’s not only because you are an excellent photographer, but also because you are an extraordinary man, with great knowledge, sensibility and gentleness. You (both: Bazan and Naples) made these days so intense and full of emotions. And I’ve just tried to capture it.
Jacek Konieczny
® Luisa Vasquez
It is not easy to make a photographic workshop in Naples. It is a huge city, with a fascinating, intense, beautiful chaos, a hidden beauty that exudes sensuality. So it is not easy to grasp all this explosive mixture and express it in photographs. It is not easy to face a workshop without a central theme, you feel a bit lost taking just pure street photography. Fortunately Ernesto worked a great deal in structuring the workshop, to find topics and locations, digging into the city.
Frankly, I do not know what we would have done without his guidance and generosity. This was my second Bazan workshop. The first was very different photographing Easter processions in Sicily.
But the workshop’s structure was the same: to photograph during the day and early the next day do the edit. Ah, what can I say about Bazan’s editing sessions?
You learn to look beyond the mere description of the moment, to see the unseen, to capture the essence of things, to do without the unnecessary, to frame better if you move a few centimeters; you learn not to be repetitive, to create a sequence … and all this being explained by Ernesto providing the accurate details during his critiques.
Next year I’ll be back with Ernesto in Naples, in this fascinating city, to keep learning.
Luisa Vasquez
® Peter Dobis
I would like to share some thoughts about my experience from the workshop in Naples with Ernesto Bazan. The whole stay in Naples was a wonderful experience just from the beginning.
We had intensive program and were exploring the whole city every single day, even very remote and interesting places. By the end of each day we enjoyed common great dinner eating best Italian pizza you can wish for.
As for the photography itself, the quality of the course surpassed my already high initial expectations. Ernesto is simply a great teacher: devoting much of his time, energy and attention to his students.
He goes into details, explaining editing, sequencing, he shows how to critically evaluate others work regardless the name of the photographer. On top of that Ernesto shared his own unpublished work with us and asked for our opinions and help with the edit. This is what he does; he really shares with his students and treats everyone as equal, which is truly exceptional.
Last but not least, I met wonderful people: Salvatore Esposito great man and award-winner photographer from Naples, Luisa, Agnieszka, Jacek and Andrea. I had great time with all of them.
To be very open, I can only recommend workshops with Ernesto. If I could, I would go with him to every single workshop, such was the pleasure of being there and because I learnt so much from him.
Peter Dobis
