Lumia Instagramer of the Week: Elvira Russo
“You gave me a smile that will last a whole week!”, Elvira Russo responded when we asked her to be this week’s Lumia Instagramer of the Week.
We still owe her quite a few smiles, considering that pretty much everything she posts on Instagram makes us beam with happiness and sheer wonder. The 29-year-old journalist from Naples says she has a boundless passion for photography, which already started at the age of 6 when her father first put a camera in her hands. That passion certainly translates to some outstanding photography, but what are the facts behind her magic? Let’s hear it from Elvira herself:
Which Lumia do you have and what do you like most about it?
I have a Nokia Lumia 1020, a gift from my boyfriend, which has changed the way I take photographs. I love its versatility, its light weight (before it I was using a heavy SLR), the comfort of the camera grip, the manual settings that allow me to adjust everything to have fun with long exposures and night shots. Every photo is a surprise for me!
Where do you shoot most of your photos and what sort of photos do you like to take best?
I like to (re)discover Naples, my city that I love madly, with my Lumia 1020. Together with my Lumia I can look at it every day with new eyes, as if it’s the first time, because it gives me new perspectives, without losing a moment to take a shot. I take the subway every day to go to work and I really enjoy photographing the movement of trains. I love long exposures, I would never have believed it was possible to take this kind of shots with a cellphone, but thanks to the Lumia 1020 I can do it!
What are your top tips for taking Instagram photos on your Lumia?
I always say “write as if your creativity is your employer.” This sentence is the only rule I follow, even in my photography. My advice is to be inspired by the beauty that exists in the world, to learn to look at life with new eyes every day.
Instagram provides many filters to give extra magic to the photos but my advice is practical: to give a lot of attention to perspective and framing because they’re crucial to making a picture beautiful.
Which five Lumia instagramers do you recommend everyone to follow?
What are the top ten favourite photos you’ve taken on your Lumia?
“I love the way photography makes a moment part of infinity and captures smiles that never come back,” Elvira says. Her words are as beautiful as her pictures, which is not surprising: she tells us she has a degree in Italian and Latin literature.
We hope you’ve found Elvira’s art as wonderful as us. If the answer is yes, check out more of her photography on Instagram. And if you’d like to be featured as Lumia Instagramer of the Week, make sure you follow us and hashtag your photos #Lumia. But for now, we’d love to know which of Elvira’s pics most rocks your boat.