Poltu Quatu Classic: celebrating beauty in the most beautiful place on earth: Sardinia.
As it happened once before, the Car & Vintage team was back in Costa Smeralda, as you already well know, to give its contribution to Simone Bertolero and his special creation, a Concours d’Elegance by the sea: the Poltu Quatu Classic.
Once again Alberto (Vassallo Car&Vintage CEO) was chosen to be among the judges, together with some of the best in the business, and I could not wait to go back and do what I do best: loose myself behind the camera. And so I did, I entered “in” my camera and I shut the door, my goal was to tell the story of the people behind the wheel, their cars and the phenomenal landscape that Sardegna had to offer.
We started in the warmest Friday of the season, the light was very strong and it was quite hard to find the right compositions, that’s when I started to focus on details, so dashboards, interiors, grills and lights here I come! I have spent 3 to 4 hour in total for the details, have I got sunburnt?! Of course I did, was it worth it? You’ll be the judge of that : )
Later in the afternoon, we finally moved from the hotel “piazzetta” to the “piazza” in San Pantaleo, one of the most beautiful villages in Gallura (Because Costa Smeralda is in Gallura, to be precise in Bassa Gallura). I had the privilege to ride with Simone in his beautiful FIAT 500 spiaggina Jolly, and as you may have seen, I took a couple of good “side” photos. To welcome us in San Pantaleo: il Maestro Giorgetto Giugiaro, always smiling always friendly. But let’s focus on the photos, so in this kind of locations it gets very hard to get good shots, the cars are too close to each other, people gather among them and so the compositions usually get to clattered. There is no space to create a nice tridimensional image, so I usually wait for something to happen, I walk around, camera in hand, and usually I get a few nice portraits and a couple of “views” from that location.
On our second day we drove to Capriccioli beach, while the judges kept on working on their score cards, guests and participants were able to go for a swim and relax in the nice weather. Me?! You guessed it, I took photos. I went for a walk to find the best spots that could describe the location as best and focused on vertical landscape composition ( never easy ), since we need that kind of format for our stories, then I focused on people, and lastly the cars; rally cars.
After a quick stop in Porto Cervo, where I took a couple of “side” shots, we went back to the Grand Hotel di Poltu Quatu for the big show. I am not going to entertain you with car details, there are tons of article about this event that will tell you all the details you need about cars, I will only talk to you about things that I know well, and that is photography. So we arrived at the end, the worst part, the part without natural light, Alberto would say that is one of those situations where I shine the most, I truly doubt it. It always depend on the kind of light and the way it behaves, for example working with city lights is one thing, but under the spotlight, let me tell you, much worse than 12 o’ clock sunlight. So i have tried so solely focus and expose on highlights, leaving some smudges here and there, like this snapshot below: Giorgetto Giugiaro receiving a fiat 850 Spider for his upcoming birthday.
Well that’s all folks, I wish I could find the time to make a video for all my articles instead of bore you with all this words, but appreciate the effort haha! Before I go I would like to thank Alberto at Car&Vintage for giving me the privilege of creating for his beautiful platform, always proud of it, and Simone for putting Sardegna on the map of classic cars enthusiast all over the world.
But please, please, please, remember you all, Costa Smeralda is just a drop in the ocean of beauties that my home can offer, and hopefully next year we may be able to discover more during this special event.
Stay humble
Respect,
Def