Monday, February 11, 2013

Carnevale Emiliano



After  converting some old  Kodachromes of the Castelnovo Carnival (RE)  that I took  20 years ago to digital with a view to putting together a Blurb book, I decided to see what the carnival is like today.

Carnevale di Castelnovo Sotto, Reggio Emilia
Carnevale di Castelnovo Sotto, Reggio Emilia

Carnevale di Castelnovo Sotto, Reggio Emilia
 It was also an excuse to try to get to grips with my new Olympus OM-D EM5 – Lumix 12-35  setup, which is far more complicated to use than the Nikon D300.

Carnevale di Castelnovo Sotto, Reggio Emilia
Carnevale di Castelnovo Sotto, Reggio Emilia
The Castelnovo carnival is a small scale version of the more famous Viareggio and Cento carnivals. It consists of a series  ( five or six) of floats with large animated paper màchè sculptures’ that are towed by tractors endlessly  around the centre of the town.  This is accompanied by deafening music blaring out from onboard sound systems.  It is  one of those events that can be categorised as a curiosity of Italian life.

Carnevale di Castelnovo Sotto, Reggio Emilia
Carnevale di Castelnovo Sotto, Reggio Emilia
Carnevale di Castelnovo Sotto, Reggio Emilia
Carnevale di Castelnovo Sotto, Reggio Emilia
Carnevale di Castelnovo Sotto, Reggio Emilia
However It is fun to photograph whilst keeping a sharp eye open for the nasty little kids on the floats who will cover you in aerosol powered gunk or paper confetti  if you catch their attention.

Carnevale di Castelnovo Sotto, Reggio Emilia
Carnevale di Castelnovo Sotto, Reggio Emilia
Carnevale di Castelnovo Sotto, Reggio Emilia
Carnevale di Castelnovo Sotto, Reggio Emilia

Carnevale di Castelnovo Sotto, Reggio Emilia
Carnevale di Castelnovo Sotto, Reggio Emilia
Carnevale di Castelnovo Sotto, Reggio Emilia
I am really getting to like this camera, it is discrete  and once I get the hang of it, quite fast enough for this type of photography. The Olympus JPEG colours are great  and whilst I shot both Raw and JPEG, a lot of the photographs were fine strait out of the camera, just like the Kodachromes that I took all those years ago.
By the way, the carnival was also just the same as the last time I saw it.

Carnevale di Castelnovo Sotto, Reggio Emilia