Cover me with Gold for Fujifilm and the Photographic Festival

The Italian photographer Gianmarco Maraviglia shared the behind-the-scenes of his project Cover me with Gold, created for Noi, qui – 2023 edition of Fotografica Festival, Bergamo Photographic Festival (Italy), which the photographer himself defines as “one of the few Italian realities capable of conveying the modernity of author storytelling.”

Cover me with Gold for Fujifilm and the Photographic Festival

The photographic project focuses on the story of Sant’Ambroeus, the Milanese soccer team that involves young immigrants, asylum seekers, people waiting for residence permits, and young people who often live on the margins. Sant’Ambroeus has carried out a real social inclusion action. The chosen narrative approach gives a glimpse of different levels of interpretation in the project, the most obvious being the one that also gives the work its title. “I decided to cover some of the subjects with a gold leaf as a symbolic reference to value of sporting and social success, but it also reminds the vibrant color of thermal blankets that welcome many migrants in our ports.

Furthermore, some images are intentionally out of focus, symbolizing the invisibility that often characterizes their daily lives. Together with curator Chiara Oggioni Tiepolo, I worked a lot on stylistic and editing choices. I wanted to juxtapose color images with black and white ones, creating a sort of narrative chaos to represent the combination of different experiences, origins, cultures, and languages, but also often non-linear lives.”

Fujifilm Kit and support
The project was entirely supported by Fujifilm Italy, from the equipment used for the shots to the choice of photographic paper for the prints.
Gianmarco Maraviglia shared his thoughts with us about the system he chases to work with and the intimate relationship that links the photographer to his tools. “I have become attached to Fujifilm’s Large Format and to the brand for some time now. For a combination of factors, when I hold this camera in my hand, I enter a different photographic mode, to which I entrust my most authorial aspect, bringing me closer to the subjects and the story, in a more reflective and introspective way.

From shooting to printing
In Cover me with Gold, the time between the conception of the work and the shooting phase was very short: I immediately immersed myself in the context. Therefore, my knowledge of photographic medium and Fujifilm’s system was crucial. Even switching from one camera to another—usually I work with both cameras around my neck—was a completely natural transition. I admit to being a bit obsessed with total control over the entire process of my work. However, projects like this are actually the result of intense collaboration with other individuals, first and foremost my curator, but also largely with Fujifilm, which supported me from the shooting phase to printing on photographic paper.

As a printing support, we chose Fujifilm’s Original Photographic Paper, specifically using DPII paper Matt.