A face moves during an exposure. Instead of a single expression, the photograph holds a trace of the movement: a presence that seems to arrive and disappear at once. For Luca Mazzara, that uncertainty is one of the reasons to keep working with long exposures. He wants to see what happens when time becomes part of the subject.
Mazzara is a photographer and filmmaker whose recent long-exposure work is digital. His earliest encounters with photography, however, happened in his father’s darkroom. He remembers the red light, trays and negatives, and the fascination of watching an image take shape. His father also experimented with printing on metal and fabric. Photography entered his life as something that could be made, handled and changed.
From the darkroom to an attic studio
His first camera was a Polaroid 500, which he used to photograph friends and classmates. A digital SLR followed, bringing more opportunities to experiment. Alongside portraits, he was drawn to architecture: the lines of buildings, perspectives and the way geometry can organise a photograph.
Those interests met in an attic he used as a studio. Its high ceiling and open space gave him room to work with models, lighting and the relationship between a body and its surroundings. The questions became more specific. How does a person occupy a space? What changes when the angle, light or posture shifts?
Long-exposure portraits: giving movement a visible form
Mazzara describes time almost as a material. A gesture that would normally pass quickly can spread across the photograph. He is interested in that change in perception: the person remains recognisable, but the image does not behave quite like the moment he remembers seeing.
“Through a long exposure, time is no longer simply something that passes: it almost becomes a material that can be recorded and made visible within the image.”
His interest in surrealism and his work in cinema both feed this approach. In filmmaking, he thinks about time through a succession of images. In a long exposure, he tries to bring several moments into one surface. Movement can make a portrait feel suspended between an encounter with a real person and the less stable logic of a dream.
The portrait starts before the shutter
Before photographing a model, Mazzara spends time talking and getting to know them. He watches how their posture, gestures and expression change as they become more comfortable. That attention helps him recognise when to continue, when a joke might ease the atmosphere and when to take a break.
Once the session begins, he prefers a calm space and relatively little conversation. He moves around the person, looking for different relationships between the light, the body and the surroundings. A studio gives him elements he can arrange; another interior or an outdoor location can offer a setting that reflects the person or creates a useful contrast.
Selection is part of this process too. Two photographs may look almost identical at first, yet a slight change in expression or posture can make one feel closer to the encounter. Mazzara gives that decision time. For him, making the exposure and choosing the photograph are connected acts.
Building enough structure to allow a surprise
Learning to balance control and freedom has been one of his central difficulties. He pays attention to the details that hold an image together, but has found that an unexpected movement, expression or change in light can take it somewhere more interesting.
His aim is to create conditions in which something can happen, then notice it when it does. Long exposure suits that approach because he can prepare the scene while remaining open to what time and movement contribute. The result can lead him away from the image he had imagined.
Leaving the viewer room to respond
Asked to describe a photograph he returns to, Mazzara speaks about a young woman with closed eyes in intense light. What matters to him is that her state remains unresolved. The photograph does not settle whether she is resting, meditating or experiencing something else.
That interest in ambiguity runs alongside his work with movement. He wants an image to keep raising questions after the first glance. Different viewers bring different memories and experiences to it, and those responses can become part of its meaning.
Guardians of Time: preserving a gesture
Time also enters his work through Guardians of Time, a project about artisans and their everyday work. In his interview, Mazzara describes looking for the gesture that expresses a craft: an action shaped by knowledge and repeated practice.
His concern is with what these gestures carry and what might be lost when a way of working disappears. He wants light, contrast and composition to draw attention to the action itself. Photography becomes a way to preserve a trace of knowledge as well as the person who holds it.
He is also developing work around disability and inclusion. The intention he describes is to allow people to appear in their everyday complexity, with room to present themselves spontaneously. The more documentary part of that project was still to be made at the time of the interview.
Across these directions, Mazzara keeps returning to a question of attention. What can a photograph make visible: a movement, a learned gesture, a moment between two people? His practice gives those things time, both in making an image and in deciding what it should become.
About Luca Mazzara
Luca Mazzara is a photographer and filmmaker whose work explores light, movement, time and perception. Portraiture and an experimental approach are central to his practice, alongside projects about memory and visual testimony. Explore his photography and films on Luca Mazzara’s website.
Questions from the interview
Is Luca Mazzara’s recent long-exposure work shot on film?
His recent long-exposure work is digital. His early experience of photography came through his father’s darkroom and his own Polaroid camera, before he began working with digital SLRs.
How does he help someone feel comfortable in a portrait session?
He starts with conversation and observation, pays attention to changes in posture and expression, and allows breaks when needed. Once photographing, he prefers a calm atmosphere and gives the person room to settle into the session.
What is Guardians of Time about?
It is Mazzara’s research into artisans and the gestures of their daily work. He wants to preserve a visible trace of skills and knowledge through photographs that give particular attention to the action of making.
Keep exploring
For another perspective on deliberate digital photography and the responsibility of representing people, read Manuel Guerzoni on precision as respect.
Based on Luca Mazzara’s written interview for Developing Stories. Interview and editing: Emiliano Vittoriosi / Berlin Photo Studio. Photographs © Luca Mazzara. Image titles, locations and years follow the selection supplied for this feature.
