As a photographer I spent a total of five months inside the intensive care unit in Bolzano (Northern Italy). During that time I blogged from inside the hospital and reduced my amount of daily work on SAR.
I did this because my very best friend Barbara was heavily attacked on social networks. She is an intensive care unit worker and was accused by many to exaggerate the Coronavirus pandemic or even worse, to completely fake it. So I felt obligated to do my best to tell her story. And once inside with her I couldn’t stop working and kept shooting many stories.
Before you go crazy on the comment system please be aware it is not my intention to discuss the pandemic. I don’t want to get into any discussion about restrictions, vaccination, economic disaster and so forth. I was not there to judge the political measures. All I intended to do is defend the honor of nurses that are saving life of our neighbors and parents.
The technical side:
I used the Sony A7rIV which proved to be be a reliable tool. The only issue is that the constant disinfection routine is wearing up the exterior parts of the camera. Even the hotshoe has now issues and sometimes the ECM-B1M microphone doesn’t work as the connectors are not working.
The one and only lens I used inside the intensive care station is the Voigtlander 40mm f/1.2 FE. This is why:
- There is a lot of noise inside the station. With machine alarms going on all time, lung pumps working constantly, patient laments, parents crying and so forth. Moreover health care workers do wear a mask and a face shield. So when I had to do interviews I had to be as close as it gets to the subject. A 50mm was too close and the 40mm lens was good enough for this
- All my interviews where done inside the station and while people were working. They kept moving around and for privacy reason I tried to keep the background as out of focus as it gets. That’s why I shot the entire video at f/1.2 aperture.
- No autofocus: With face shields reflecting a lot of light I had to work with manual focus anyway to get the eyes spot on. Focus peaking has definitely becoming my most loved feature ;)
Where to see my pics:
I have a ton of videos and photos and only started very recently to tease some of these on my website andreapizzini.com, on my Instagram channel, Flickr and 500px. Feel free to follow me there!
For Media and Youtubers:
If you have interest in getting more pics or interview just contact me at sonyalpharumors@gmail.com
