ITS#EIGHT

Sarah shoots slowly. There is no hurry as she tries to absorb all of the energy from the scene in front of her. There's no need to shoot dozens of pictures to capture it. She waits as the right moment arrives to press the shutter release. You can tell when the moment arrives. She's there, she's waiting and she's ready. And she won't miss it. It is perfectly natural for her to use different cameras according to what she's looking for: An old Polaroid with bellows, a digital compact Canon, a 35mm...

Kazutaka uses a 35mm analog Ricoh, a digital reflex and a medium format analog Pentax. His interest is focused on details and people. His personal style makes him explore and find things that normally nobody notices. An emotional reportage. You might stop and wonder why he's shooting a very specific part of a lifeguard boat on the beach. What on earth has he found? It's only when you see the picture that you totally understand. He finds something you won't be able to describe. You'll just see it and think "Ah! That's it!"

Kazutaka Nagashima won the MINI Clubman Photo Award at ITS#SEVEN. Sarah Moon won herself a place in the history of photography with a lifetime's work made of ethereal and enigmatic images. She also accepted our invitation to be in the Photography Jury that selected Kazutaka as the winner of the last edition of ITS#PHOTO. As part of the prize, she would be spending a few days together with this incredible Japanese talent shooting pictures in the surroundings of San Marino and Urbino (central Italy). The MINI Clubman Photo Award highlights the values that MINI shares with ITS, demonstrating MINI's attention to young creativity and to the importance of finding ways to support it and give it exposure: The winner gets to work on a photo shoot travelling together with an iconic photographer. The photos taken during the tour will be showcased in an exhibition and published in a renowned magazine.

The tour started out on 11 September in Bologna. With an ITS-branded MINI Clubman and a huge/comfortable BMW X5 both provided by our partner MINI, Sarah Moon, Kazutaka, and a production team that included two EVErs (Pablo, who's a photographer himself and Tibor, nominated honorary "EVEr" for this tour) and Laila Pozzo (assistant to Sarah) drove towards Urbino, passing through Imola and San Marino. Places in the Umbria surroundings, a region in central Italy with a landscape that is not that different from what you might find in Tuscany. It's easy for photographers to get started in beautiful places...

The first spot for some good pictures was a farm close to San Marino, where Kazutaka lost himself while shooting trees and chicken. Along the road was also the Aviation Museum, full of old civil and military aircrafts parked in a surreal landscape that inspired both Sarah and Kazu. At dinner time the group arrived at the planned HQs for this tour: "Urbino Resort", a wonderful farm with rooms to let in the middle of an incredible private property surrounded by hills. We warmly recommend the place, and the kindness of its owners is a plus. Its beauty was revealed entirely the following morning, when the owner of the resort offered to take everyone for a tour of the property. Though the sky was mostly grey that day, the few rays of sun cutting through the clouds and the beauty of those hills were enough to inspire Sarah and Kazu to capture the moment.

While "hunting" for rays of light a funny episode takes place. It suddenly stops raining and a couple of clouds open up letting some light in. Kazutaka says "please stop stop!" and the MINI stops on the side of the road while Kazu steps off the car with his camera in hand. After a few pictures he's satisfied and comes back, but the car is stuck in the mud. Another car stops by and two people offer to help. In a minute, 6 people are trying to push the MINI out of the mud without success! The solution arrives after a phone call: a jeep comes over with a towrope and finally solves the problem!

To thank them for the help Pablo and Tibor decide to offer a drink, so the whole group moves to the town bar called "Il Circolo dei Borghi" where the atmosphere is as surreal as a Fellini movie, with lots of weird and interesting people (including our heroes!): there's an old man called "Cimino" aged 89 who boasts about his love affairs, a woman with heavy make-up and drawn-in eyebrows who poses for Kazutaka while Tibor tells the story of why he grew a beard to another group of old people, all while wine is poured into glasses...At the end of the day renowned photographer Alberto Novelli joined the group. Novelli had already participated at last year's tour with Berengo Gardin and Maria Giulia Giorgiani shooting wonderful backstage pictures.

The following day starts with a morning at the sea in Cesenatico, a town nearby. Summer is over: empty beaches, empty residential buildings from the 60s, just some old people playing bowls...Sarah, Kazutaka and Alberto Novelli were fascinated by this weird, end-of-season, surreal atmosphere! After that the group stopped at the saltworks in Cervia, another fascinating setting.

By far the most successful location of the whole tour was "Italia in Miniatura", an amusement park entirely dedicated to the miniature reproduction of the most famous Italian buildings and landscapes. Everyone went crazy shooting pictures of unreal perspectives and false proportions! It was here that Sarah Moon asked Kazutaka to take a portrait of her with a fake mountain background. Kazutaka couldn't believe it, and didn't miss the opportunity to ask Sarah if she would take a portrait of him. It was amazing to see a consumate professional and a young talent measure their ability in capturing each other's essence in a photo. Even though Sarah and Kazutaka have their own personal style, both seem to have a similar kind of elegance, politeness and discretion in the search and portrayal of the unseen, of what lies beneath even the simplest of things.

If you happen to stop in Milan, Napapijri Gallery Store in Via Manzoni 34 will showcase, from November 26 '08 to January 6 '09, a selection of pictures from the tour. We hope you find the time to see the result of what has been another inspiring, unforgettable photographic tour, both for us and for the incredible photographers involved.