Dominique Agius combines his passion for photography with his deep admiration for the classical Masters of chiaroscuro. It is an homage to Caravaggio and De La Tour, who set a new era in art.
A lifelong lover of the image, Dominique got her first camera when he was 15 years old. He became interested in photography out of curiosity, then this practice took more and more place until becoming his profession.
Since 2010, Dominique has been running his own studio.
He’s been teaching at the International University of Monaco since 2014 and is also teaching at the School of Fine Arts in Menton and at the prestigious Sciences Po school also in Menton, France. He joined the EDAA team in 2018 and became teacher and corrector.
His work is very often viewed in exhibitions in France and abroad. Dominique is also the French ambassador for Phottix and Samyang.
Vanitas was born of a desire to combine Dominique’s passion for photography and his deep admiration for the classical Masters of painting. It is an homage to Caravaggio and De La Tour, these artists who understood how light works and who set a new era in art. These undisputed masters of chiaroscuro not only knew how to depict light, but they also mastered perspective and composition like never before. This science of perspective and of illumination of its rendering on materials, its dramatic side, its modeling and the volumes it highlights is nothing other than a photographic work ahead of times.
Vanitas shows some of the recurrent themes in Baroque paintings combined with an extremely precise composition to remain as faithful as possible to the work of these Masters. The characters are isolated on dark backgrounds, leaving a feeling of closeness, intimacy. All underlined by a precise illumination and an impeccable composition.
This series was technically very demanding. In order to produce images that are faithful to Baroque paintings, several images had to be put together to recreate chiaroscuro specific lighting. Only lit with flash, some scenes needed up to seven images to recreate candle light.
Then there was a precise work on color grading. Using painting technics, it was important to respect the specific look of oil painting and reproduce deep shadows and accurate luminosity.
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