ALICUDI - La Casa Gialla

On Alicudi there are no roads. What arrives, arrives by sea, and then goes up the mountain on foot or on a mule. This is not picturesque detail: it decides everything about the three days. We move slowly, we carry only what we need, and the work happens where we are.

Six photographers and three models will share the Yellow House, a few terraces above the landing stage. We will work from the first light, through the flat hours in shade, and again in the long descent of the afternoon, when the stone gives back everything it has taken in. Between the sessions there is nothing to do but look at the sea, look at the pictures, and talk about both.

The subject here is the body as landscape: a shoulder read as rock, a back as a slope, a figure standing still in a terrace of black stone until the difference between the two becomes a question rather than a fact. It asks for patience and for a certain quietness, from us and from the models.

Anna, Joanne and Linda work with the nude as gesture and presence rather than as display. Consent, boundaries and pace are set by them, in the open, before each session. Everything we photograph grows out of that agreement.

Meet the Model is a shared photographic production. It is neither a course nor a workshop: no lessons and nothing to hand in. Bring the images you would like to attempt and the patience the island requires.

The house is reserved exclusively for our production, and rooms are available to you without any supplement to the participation fee. Meals are taken together and are included; drinks remain at each person's own expense.

Alicudi is the westernmost of the Aeolian Islands and the least inhabited: a single volcanic cone rising straight out of the sea, with a few dozen houses on its eastern flank and a network of stone staircases in place of streets.

The Yellow House stands on one of the higher terraces, with a walled courtyard, whitewashed rooms and a long view over the water towards Filicudi. The building material is the island itself — black lava stone, lime, cane — and the light behaves accordingly: hard and vertical in the middle of the day, and in the last two hours warm enough to turn the stone almost red.

The terraces are the real set. Dry-stone walls, prickly pear, the occasional flight of steps going nowhere, and above everything the bare upper slope of the volcano. Nothing needs to be built. The island is already a landscape of bodies.

Over many years of working as a photographer, and of running both a photographic studio and an equipment-hire service, I came to understand what photographers truly hope to find when they arrive on a set. Not simply more equipment, but the freedom to make an image without being stopped by the absence of the right tool.

This is what London Photographic Workshop places at your disposal: a rare, complete photographic production, brought together in one place and made available to you for the duration of the event. It is the kind of equipment most photographers encounter only in fragments, over many years, and which would cost a considerable sum to hire for a three-day production.

You will be able to work with HASSELBLAD X2D II cameras and a selection of HASSELBLAD lenses; SUNBOUNCE natural-light systems, including reflectors, screens, Sun-Swatter and Sun-Cage; PROFOTO, BRONCOLOR and BOWENS studio flash; professional battery-powered PROFOTO flash, with a complete selection of modifiers; LEE Filters and professional matte boxes; MANFROTTO photographic tripods; and MATTHEWS grip equipment.

This is not equipment assembled for display. It is a working set of serious tools: the cameras, light, modifiers and support systems that allow an idea to become a photograph when the moment arrives.

Respect is part of the photographic language, not an administrative footnote. All models and participants must be eighteen or older. The models determine their individual nudity and posing boundaries. Consent is specific, ongoing and may be withdrawn at any time. No participant may touch a model without explicit permission. No phones, spectators or behind-the-scenes recording on closed sets.

Images may not be published, exhibited, sold or submitted to competitions outside the agreed model-release terms. No generative-AI training or synthetic alteration of a model’s body or identity. A private changing and resting area must always be available. Models receive proper breaks, meals, accommodation and transport support.

Alcohol is served only after photography has finished for the day. Before each session, the artistic director holds a short consent check-in covering wardrobe, nudity level, location, participating photographers and intended images.