The Italian Cultural Institute of Beirut presents The Portrait Project: The Journey, an immersive journey dedicated to the art of portrait photography and led by photographer Marco Pinarelli. The project invites participants to enter slowly into the creative process, where light, composition, and presence come together to give form to a carefully crafted image.
The experience draws on Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio, and explores how his pictorial mastery can be translated into contemporary portrait photography. Participants will explore Caravaggio’s visual language and the Baroque sensibility while rediscovering the foundations of photography: the study of light as a narrative element, composition and its symbolism and, becoming themselves the subject of the portrait, role play and stepping into character, through to the construction of space and scene.
The workshop is aimed at photographers, visual artists, painters, designers, scenographers, and those who tell stories through images, as well as anyone familiar with the camera who wishes to explore portraiture with greater depth. By the end, each participant will take away a fuller awareness of light, composition, and set design, an insight into a genuine photographic production process, and a carefully crafted pictorial portrait. To preserve focus, intimacy, and depth, the experience unfolds over two days for a total of twelve hours and is limited to a small group of six to eight participants, who are provided with the necessary equipment.
With The Portrait Project, the Italian Cultural Institute of Beirut continues its mission of promoting Italian culture and fostering dialogue between Italy and Lebanon. The initiative seeks to bring to Lebanon the excellence of an Italian artist and a distinctive photographic vision, and to let it meet local sensibility, talent, and know-how. It is in this dialogue between Italian professionals and Lebanese practitioners that the project finds its fullest meaning, making artistic creation a shared ground for exchange, learning, and mutual enrichment.