Celebrities “au naturel”, without makeup and hairstyling, in the photographer’s portraits.

Private Sitting is a project Gianluca Fontana undertook in order to break beyond a limit, to try to cross the line between the person and the persona and to investigate that boundary through the lens of the emotions – the little gaps, moments of uncertainty, introspection or liberating joy.

Each shot is the sum of deliberate sacrifices: no make-up artist or hair stylist, no costumes, a minimum of light, neutral backgrounds and no other person on the set.Gianluca Fontana has been able to create an intimate space and repay the sense of challenge inherent in this project, while his subjects have been able to seize the opportunity to join a gallery of portraits that absorbs and recapitulates the most significant artistic expressions of contemporary photography.

Begun five years ago, the project has involved fifteen women (Alessandra Mastronardi, Ambra Angiolini, Anita Caprioli, Carolina Crescentini, Cristiana Capotondi, Giulia Elettra Gorietti, Isabella Ferrari, Kasia Smutniak, Margareth Madè, Marta Gastini, Matilde Gioli, Miriam Dalmazio, Tea Falco, Valeria Bilello and Vittoria Puccini), who certainly know the “aesthetic tricks” of an increasingly sophisticated form of photography. In this case, however, they have allowed themselves to be photographed with no “special effects”.