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Biography:

Hi: my name is Francesco Bellomo and I am a still photographer.
I was born in Pescara from a family of photographers. During the postwar years my father has been a great typographer of the black&white in Pescara. Since I was little my smells have been those of the development and fixing, or that strong and sharp of the acetic acid. For this reason my life was marked: I had to be a photographer in life! Being near to my father I learnt all the techniques and tips of dark room and clicks. To sixteen I was just a skilled photographer. To earn some money and to refine the click tecnique, in the summer period I went on the beach with my Kodak Retina to photograph the swimmers.
In 1961, after served in the army, I moved to Rome to seek a job.
I found job as photographer in the EZIO VITALE advertising and fashion agency. My first important service was the making of the STOCK 84 liquor advertisement: the photo of the beautiful girl in Santa Claus clothes stayed engraved in the mind of the people as for that times it was a transgression.
By looking at the photos taken by other colleagues working in my same agency I began to be enchanted by the cinema. As a matter of fact, my first movie as still photographer was "LA TRAVIATA" interpreted by the beautiful soprano Anna Moffo, the first color TV movie transmitted from RAI in Italy. The turn of my career happened in the half of sixties when I went to belong to the famous agency of Sergio Spinelli: "ROMA PRESS PHOTO". I usually frequented the most important sets by making specials for the national and foreign press. Among the sets that have remained engraved in the memory for importance of the director, or by the actor that interpreted it or for the trips there are: the reward oscar "IL GIARDINO DEI FINZI CONTINI", directed by the mythical Vittorio De Sica, as well as the movie "LA RAGAZZA CON LA PISTOLA" (directed by Mario MONICELLI) masterfully interpreted in a comical role by Monica Vitti, until then the dramatic muse of M. ANTONIONI. And then the long and hard movie "LA TENDA ROSSA", the story of the Italian dirigible headed by Umberto Nobile, an expedition among the North Pole ices ended in tragedy. This experience formed me both professionally and humanly because of the adventures and misadventures happened during the period of the recording (eight months) in marvelous places like Estonia and Russia. They were difficult communist countries to be visited from Westerners but the cinema had the power to open those doors which were closed for centuries, also thanks to the help of the director of the film: the Russian Kalatazov. For a thirty-year-old like me it has been an unique experience of life. Above all by the cold suffered in the different northern countries, as the day when we shot in Tallin and I was walking on the frozen sea, of course try to guess to whom could break the ice under the feet...oh boys, what bloody rotten luck! You can think on the burst of laughter by the rest of the crew. With the movie "BLACK STALION RETURN" I moved from the ices of the North Pole to the Sahara desert. I can say that am one of the few photographers that can explain both polar and desert "emotions". My professional life has been enough rich and lucky by working with directors of the calibre of ANTONIONI, CAVANI, MONICELLI, ZURLINI, FELLINI, ARGENTO, up to reach the current days with PIERACCIONI. Naturally, as other colleagues of my same generation, today that cinemas is not realized anymore and then it had different emotions.