I'M SYDNEY DUNCAN, Your MILAN BASED PHOTOGRAPHER.
I specialize in lifestyle family portraits, romantic proposal photography sessions, and editorial-style Branding Photography across Italy. I work with international clients who value imagery that feels intentional, effortless, and emotionally grounded. My goal is to create photographs that don’t just document the moment, they hold it.
Today I want to take you through a personal favorite photo story I've been privileged to work on. An Italian Family Portrait Session with the Sicilian Messina family.
The Matriarch
"Sei innamorato di me, non è vero?" Nonna Luisa looked directly into my eyes and asked, a confident, teasing smile on her face. Translation, "You're in love with me, aren't you?"
"Sì, è vero." I laughed, my camera lens still locked onto her, though the actual photo session had been well packed up and concluded. We were in the car on route back to her residence in Sicily - a three story home which her husband had built from the ground up decades prior - and where I had been staying with them for a week or so.
There were whispers of a possible shoot concept in the months leading up to this moment, the seed of an idea which had planted into the right side of my brain and had slowly taken root. One with Luisa, her daughter Patrizia, and her daughter Anita in mind.
Three generations of Sicilian woman, together, on the beach in the town that started it all. Simple enough in concept, substantial in significance.
editorial portraits with nonna luisa
Anyhow, as I was saying, there had been whispers of a photoshoot I'd wanted to do while we were all together in Sicilia, but the actual moment was rather spontaneous.
The family was in the kitchen playing cards when I burst into the room. My eyes a bit wild, I'm sure, as I'd just realized that it was the last day we'd all be together, the sun would only remain in the sky for an hour or so longer, and the rainclouds were taking a much needed afternoon nap.
"Andiamo!" I announced, the four of us making way to Patty's bedroom to begin tossing clothing options back and forth between each other. The setting sun was making me sweat, though in a much different way than it had done so at full mast in the summer heat when I'd laid out sunbathing the days prior. This particular brand of sweat meant the clock was ticking. The pressure was on.
Fortunately Nonna Luisa needed no styling. She simply stood with nonchalance to excuse herself from the card game, went upstairs to her room, and returned looking straight out of a gucci resort wear ad in a dress she'd personally hand crocheted.
Outfit selections finalized, we piled into the car and made haste towards the beach.
It was practically empty, a post-rain advantage. I said a silent thank you to those same rainclouds who had spent the entire morning pissing me off.
I began with Louisa's portraits. She was my lighting and compositional guinea pig, and with Anita's help we set the scene. Patrizia, on the other hand, was still stuck at the car, frustratedly fussing with a trunk that had decided now would be the right time not to latch. Così è la vita.
Mother and daughter portraits on the Italian sea
Help (in the form of Anita's boyfriend) having arrived to guard the car, an exasperated Patty was finally able to join us down at the beach.
The sun was nearly down, no time to decompress, I put her straight to work.
Unlike her mother and daughter who both fully and shamelessly werk it for the camera, Patty is a bit more camera shy. How she could ever think herself un-photogenic I could never tell you, Every frame of her was absolutely stunning.
Candid moments
Finally it was time for the youngest of the three generations to hop in.
As I said, Anita had no qualms with the serve.
Three generations of woman
As a girl whose grandmother left this life too soon, this photo concept took on heavy meaning for me.
In recent months, my grandmother Sondra has held especially prevalent square footage in my mental landscape. Maybe because I'm getting older... thirty is just around the corner. I realize that isn't old, but it's significant. The grey hairs peaking through the fringe against my forehead remind me of that.
Though I've lived with a hell of a lot of independence, particularly in the last 7 years where my lifestyle could very well be described as nomadic, I've realized that I haven't really felt at home in the word "woman" until recently. With this new home came too an entire influx of revelation. Moving boxes labeled with things like, "Who I have been ", and "Who I want to be", securely taped up... it was time to open them.
In saying that, this photography session felt as much therapy for me as a gift to them - these three incredible women who have been imperative in making Italy my home (there's that heavy, complex word again). With life always bending and changing, my own perhaps above average in its perpetual flux, I wasn't sure where from this point our journeys would take us. I wanted to give them something so that they knew how they impacted me. Something I'll never not wish that I had, had.
While there is no doubt that it is the woman of the Messina family's story being told here, for me this project also carries the spirit of my own family's generational bond. Even with my own nonna having passed when I was so young, there has always been this thread, from her, through my mother, and into me. Call it genetic, call it soul, whatever it is, it's tangible. Capturing these portraits was also an homage to her.
your family portrait session
This blog entry got away from me.
It wasn't meant to be so sentimental, but what are family portraits if not that?
Who we are... who we came from... that's what makes a Family Portrait. I'll do the standard posed and smiling photos if my clients insist on them, but honestly those don't interest me much. What I do care about, what drives me, is the story behind your lineage. The threads that connect you. I want to tell family stories with personality, authenticity, and heart.
And I'd love to tell your story, too.
