Canon Ambassador Aline Deschamps combined portraits of the residents of the Sassi district in Matera, Italy, with images of the ancient cave dwellings that the area is famous for. The unique stone structures, built on the bones of prehistoric settlements, provided a striking visual background. Taken on a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV with a Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM lens. © Aline Deschamps
In 2019, French-Thai documentary photographer Aline Deschamps was one of many photographers invited to Matera for a three-month artistic residency, sponsored by Canon. The opportunity to document the region's transformation resulted in her creating Fiore di resilencia, a double exposure project that combines urban scenes of faded structures and plants clinging to life in what looks to be an utterly inhospitable environment with soulful portraits of the area's inhabitants.
In one sense, Aline's layered photographic approach is a visual representation of the district's complex history. The project blends several photographic genres into one: portraiture, urban landscape and street photography. But for Aline, it all comes under a single umbrella. "In the end, I'm only doing one genre, which is documentary," she says. "Whether it's by posing someone, or capturing life on the street, I'm just telling the stories of these people."
Here, she shares five lessons she learned from using double exposures to document life in the Sassi.