Aldo Cervato > Photography

Thank you for visiting the online fine art photography gallery of Aldo Cervato. The images presented here are taken from a much larger collection produced by the photographer over the past twelve years. The majority of the black and white photographs were captured using traditional photographic equipment, an old Nikon F3 film camera and a Pentax 6x7 medium format camera with manual focus optics. Most of the images were taken in London where the photographer lived until a few years ago. For the past five years, he has been building a portfolio of black and white photographs on Venice, and lives only a few hours away. Aldo has flawlessly captured the moments he has witnessed during his travels to fascinating destinations like Paris, Rome and other extraordinary locations; using his Nikon to create timeless black and white images that tell their own unique and interesting stories.

Although in the past, Aldo has worked from his own studio in Italy using staged or posed subjects (see the Still Life Gallery), the photographer prefers to work outdoors and, in his own words, “in touch with real life.” You will notice that most of the images shown are in black and white. This is because the artist was strongly attracted to the medium after visiting art galleries in the United States in the early 1990s. He was also greatly inspired after attending an exhibit which featured the black and white photographs of the great master Elliot Erwitt. He initially chose black and white photography because of its practicality and cost-effective, yet precise manner of portraying a subject using the simple tonal ranges found in shades of gray.

In the 1990s, digital technology was still in its early stages and was not yet widely available. At that time, working with black and white film in the traditional wet darkroom, was seen as the best option by the photographer since it allowed for easy and predictable control over the entire process; from the exposure and development of the film to the final printing stage. Today Aldo rarely works in the dark room, usually only when he needs to develop black and white film. He has commissioned Imagekind, one of the top art printing companies in the United States, to produce his prints; leaving him free to concentrate on the creative side of photography. By special request, he will produce black and white photographs the traditional way in his darkroom, but admits that Imagekind’s fine art photography printing excels the traditional darkroom process.

Aldo is an award winning photographer who has worked with Lomo, Holga, Diana and Polaroid cameras, which he says are able to produce rewarding results, like surrealistic and atmospheric color in addition to black and white images. Some of these images are shown in his galleries. He has also worked with digital equipment but regularly returns to classic black and white film when it comes to fine art photography. Though he has been awarded by Fujifilm, a leading photographic institution, Aldo has not taken part in many photographic contests because, as an independent and candid artist, he finds it too constraining to work within someone else’s guidelines and rules.

You be the judge. As you view the various galleries, let the photographs speak for the photographer. Let the point of view that inspired him to capture those special, candid moments resonate. This will be his greatest reward.

(Please report any technical issues with the site; i.e. void links, slow downloads, text overlapping images, text errors, etc.) Again, on behalf of Aldo Cervato, thank you!

© Black and White Photography by AldoCervato