Chiome, Lecco Photograph

I was born in 1964 in Zollino, near Lecce, half way between the Ionian and Adriatic Seas, surrounded by the solemnity of ancient Roman architecture and the exuberance of churches and aristocratic residences built in the distinctive Lecce baroque style. Growing up in the presence of so much history and beauty led me to reflect on visual languages from an early age. Thus, after training as a photographer, I continued to study not only the history of the great photographers, but also the history of art and new media: on one side Cartier-Bresson, Klein, Capa, Herwit and Scianna; on the other De Chirico, Boccioni and Balla. I soon realised however that books would not be enough. Having completed my studies, I flew to Israel for the first of a series of journeys that led me to train my lens on the places, people and stories of the entire world. In 1989, on my way back from the Middle East, I opened my studio in Lecce, combining my work as a professional photographer for fashion, advertising, art catalogues and photo books for actors and models with research into new photographic languages. The latter has led me to progressively specialise in liquid reportage and narrative and emotional approaches, seeking to capture the identity of a place together with my own in a single shot. After that fateful trip to Israel, over the years I have presented my vision of Jerusalem, New York, Miami, Toronto, Tokyo, Madrid, Amsterdam, London and many other places. Obviously, I have also sought to capture scenes of daily life in historic cities throughout Italy. In 2010 finally I inaugurated People, my first personal exhibition, presenting to the public a summary of my first 20 years of reportage (1989-2009), with a selection of 69 works, which can also be seen in the photographic book of the same name. People represents a collection of portraits in a labyrinth of roads, a stream of emotions flowing through the distinctive ambience of each metropolis, captured in the instant they appeared before my eyes. Obviously I did not stop there. I continued to travel and shoot, whenever possible, between one job and another. In 2011 I began to teach traditional and digital photography and photography applied to multimedia for video makers in various institutions in the region, focusing on new media, video and audio for the transmission of a message, also participating in the creation of numerous audiovisual products.