This is really pissing me off ???? Having fans on location everyday trying to kiss me… ???? That’s embarrassing ☺️
This is really pissing me off ???? Having fans on location everyday trying to kiss me… ???? That’s embarrassing ☺️
While walking at the park I had such an interesting meeting with a stunning black swan.
– 4. Yeah it’s not the outside temperature but the weight I’ve lost in 6 weeks. And a lot of work is coming from an amazing healthy food starting by the early morning with a stunning light.
finally… I have a bad habit, I love flipping mags, both printed or online. And I never like them, the most of them you just flip and flip, in 30 secs you forget what you’ve see, probably even in 5 sec.
Till when, sometimes, you stop a little longer, because of het of course, maybe a little more contrast would have been better for the printed mags, but what to say… finally a good one.
I care and a lot. Thanks for all the messages and thanks for coming back. I’m just not that social person. I don’t live my life looking at how many likes or dislikes I have for a post. I never look at the stats but of course the people managing my job for business they all do.
I’ve never been interested in a project or a cover or a feature if I was not totally into it.
We can’t judge somebody’s work depending on his/her likes or social connections. Mostly in the artistic area there’s people judging your work today like sh.. and in a few years like gifted. When I met people in the last 25 years around the globe telling me how to shoot, or forcing me to shoot teathered I always said fu.. it and I moved away.
Because I respect the people, everyone around me and I pretend respect for me and my team when I’m working.
Anyhow, when I’m not publishing something my website goes down with the stats but as soon as I publish a post and I share it on a social the website goes up like crazy and I get really close, like today, to become the most… followed (not for likes but for website visitors), the most famous, the most inspiring visual creative, in the all world (they keep on saying to me).
Our website starts recording numbers and numbers and they drive me crazy to use much more of the socials.
And even if… yes I did a lot in the past and a little less in the last 6 years… you guys are still a lot and when I say a lot I really mean a lot.
I never really wanted to stop, I just realized it was time to change something in my life. So I took my life on a easier level, being part of my daughter’s life for 6 years while planning for new projects.
I know covers are important, even your name on a huge campaign or 10k likes on your facebook page…
It’s not for me. I mean, I’m grateful for any single like or comment or sharing but I do not judge my life depending on those things. I just judge my life through my daughter’s eyes. When she’s smiling I know I did a good job as a father.
Photography is still my passion, but not depending on the other’s opinion.
When I was 20 or 30 and the chance to get 100 covers a year I always said no because I was never interested to work in Miami or whatever with great models and what they call “editorial budgets” for a few bucks just to be in a cover of a magazine while the art director and the 2 fashion editors were flying there with business class budgets to stay in a 5 stars hotel and telling me how to shoot and the model how to pose, knowing like Zero about those things.
I never needed those steps on my way and today I’m happy I made these choices.
So, thank you for coming back. You know I will never change but I can try to be a little more social or at least to publish something more.
One more time, thanks again.
they asked me to find a way to think at a message for a news magazine.
I just picked up one of the news that really attracted my attention.
The same day this campaign has been released Noura Hussein sentence to death has been cancelled.
I know it wasn’t because of this campaign, I’m not stupid.
But I also know that the right information can really change this world in a better place to live.
Thanks for all the messages supporting my choice.
while waiting at the CDG airport in France for my connection to London, I was checking some mags and here we have it, something I really like. Nice look, going back straight to the ’90s, nice ad, nice idea, for a beauty product and we all know how boring that can be in an advertising campaign.
Well done.
Because art is a limit of your imagination that actually has no limits at all. So, it’s natural to my eyes to see every form of art like unlimited. Photography has no exception.
So, I’ve always said that as a photographer I feel like a visual composer and when I see my pictures in post production I’m never totally satisfied. Because I know my team and the great pros I work with di the best and I kinda like what I see, but deeply inside myself I know we can always do better and this kind of sickness is part of my stupid brain since the first day I took my very first black and white image with my russian camera at the end of the 80s.
Michelle thank you for sending me this ad.
I mean thank you, I’ve been busy like crazy and I really had no time at all to share anything on my website. Meanwhile I kept receiving a lot of messages and comments with tons of materials from the past.
I know I have to be more on the socials and even publish much more on m website.
It’s just that when I’m not working I love to spend my free hours (very few ones) with the ones I love, my family and we are a huge one, with horses and dogs and ducks and bunnies and so on, then it’s really hard to find the time to post something.
Well, I’ll do my best I promise because you are a lot coming back every single day.
So thank you and by the way with a lot of things I received from the past I liked this one that reminds me a stunning moment in my professional life.
Thank you Debbie.
Since the day my daughter was born I totally changed my life.
I rejected so many jobs and new project that my previous managers one day called me to fire me.
I’ve been spending my all professional life living between Paris, London, Miami, Mew York and Los Angeles, not forgetting Milan. I was living in five star hotels, but always hotels. Sometimes we lived in some stunning villas or amazing residences, but always far away from what we can call home.
In some occasions the people working at those hotels were the closest thing I had to something like a family… so sad I know.
So when my daughter was born I promise myself to let the passion for my job behind and give new priorities to my life.
Priority numer One: my daughter. Everything else, waiting in line.
I would do the same again and again without even thinking about that, because she really changed my life.
Today I know what “Home” means, I know what “love” is and I feel satisfied like never before.
Sometimes I was missing my travels for sure, but I knew what I was doing.
Today I have a new manager and new agents, they still want to represent me and they are ready to give me just what I can take.
So, thank you everyone for coming back on this website, sending messages and asking questions almost every day.
I never stopped to be a photographer because you never stop to be. No matter if you do it for money or for free.
I just needed this break, no matter what.
And as you know, I never stopped working on new projects, planning for the Tv show, the new jobs, the galleries, the new book and a lot more that we are going to release within the year.
I’m proud of what I did, I really wanted with all myself and I really hope you can understand.
I’m not the one living for the glamour or the public relations and I’m so bad as you know with the social networks because life need to be lived that’s what I learned from my daughter and posting a picture about myself on socials I feel that is like stealing time to the real life.
Six years ago I took the opportunity to change my life.
Because life is too short and we must enjoy what we have right now, together with the people we love. Because everything can change in a fraction of time.
As soon as you start getting your meaning in this life, you’ll start to enjoy it for real.
Photography has been my life and it’s gonna be forever no matter about how much money I’ll make out of it. But that is my professional life, my business side.
The private side, I love to keep it private.
I love to see my daughter’s smile when she wakes up, we play with our dogs and we have breakfast together… I even learned to cook french crepes for her.
Because if life would stop right there, I know I deeply enjoyed the big part of it.
dedicated to the people living on the Instagram planet, just because they loved this post so much.
We all had our own heroes when we were young. One of them has always been my brother Mirco.
If it wasn’t for him my story would be a few lines of sad and stupid memories.
My bro has always been my hero when I was a child and I know in some ways he’s still one of my heroes.
The good guy, always ready to do the right thing at the right moment. The opposite of the man I am.
Someone you can trust in and someone you can count on.
A much better photographer than Joey Shaw and even better as a photo retoucher.
Someone behind the scenes never looking for the lights of the stage.
Someone you can count on, very hard to find in this world.
Well buddies, give me a break today, to tell my bro how much I’m proud and I feel lucky I had such a bro, despite our family was broken and missing every single day of our lives.
He’s been my family, my hero, my light at the end of the tunnel.
I wish everybody a bro like the one I had but meanwhile I spent such a stunning life because of you.
Happy birthday brother, wish you the very best from this life.
Well, one of the things I love the most when I’m waiting for my flight or just during my relax time it is to read a book.
When I don’t have any I watch some fashion mags, no matter the nationality, I love to see the fashion photographs inside the magazines.
So, yesterday I bought the last issue of Amica, actually I have a subscription for it. I downloaded it and I was ready to flip the pages on my iPad.
But probably Amica doesn’t care anymore about what’s quality. Because the pages are all in low resolution and not at all retina ready.
It’s like if all the pics were coming from old smartphones with 2 or 3 Mpixels.
That is really pissing me off.
Today’s digital world has changed a lot and we can really handle huge amounts of data with easy and fast download.
So, where is the point?
We all know. The mag is oriented to the print version and the digital one is only the adaptation of some kind of PDF or whatever.
The final readers don’t care, because they pay and the pretend the quality, otherwise the digital issue could be free.
The contributors don’t care.
They’ve been asked the quality (together with the good price), to reach a final step of a low resolution?
As I said, it’s just pissing me off.
That’s not going towards quality, that’s just cheap.
Life is crazy. Some years ago I’ve been taking some pics in Beverly Hills very close to the same house where after years I moved to live in.
Life surprises you every single day if you let her do it.
I respect the people on location even more than myself. I know this is a team work. We must find a way to connect the make up artist with the hair stylist and the stylist in the right location with the right crew to make the magic happens.
Everything else, it’s like no-sense to my eyes.
Art directors, editorial staff or contributors or editors are not welcome to break this creative soul.
We all have our own job, we know what to do. In some moments I’m forced because of the budgets and the deadlines to shoot even 3 celebs in a day with the same team.
But I’ll never give to someone else the right to come to my set and tell us what kind of dress, make up or hair style we should use. Never tell me to shoot teathered or to use flashes if I don’t want.
Never ever come where I work to tell us how to do our job.
Because we respect any other position but we pretend to get the respect we want.
No other choice to work together.
We don’t really need to work in any other way.
once in a…while someone is over the Top and this girl is rocking for real.
today she’s the most modern fashion icon around.
when you are shooting fashion and even portraits, full body, the dress always matters.
Never tell me that the model, the actress, she can wear everything.
WRONG! Totally wrong.
The dress is part of the portrait as much as the story you are going to tell, the light you wanna use or the location you’ve been choosing.
Never listen to the ones saying that the dress doesn’t matter, they do not have respect for the subject and the storyboard.
When I posted that I was married with Apple and cheating with Huawei for the new stunning camera a lot of people wrote asking for more details about this affair.
Well, what I meant to say was that the Huawei Mate 10 Pro is having such a good frontal camera and an absolutely stunning 20 MP monochrome from Leica.
Huawei gives you a Pro list of tools turning your smartphone experience regarding pictures very close to what a photographer should do, learning about exposure, aperture and speed.
With this stunning smartphone you have a real camera in your hand. Of course at this point you would say that a lot of smartphones do that.
But if you use the black and white option with your Huawei Mate 10 Pro your images turn like a black and white display showing you what you are going to shoot. Just amazing.
And about the quality, we are using the best lenses out there ever built for a smartphone.
I’ve always been saying that no matter what camera you use but the most important side of this job are the lenses.
You can get great images with a cheap camera and stunning lenses, but never try the opposite with a great camera and cheap lenses.
So, I’m still testing this smartphone/camera and I kinda like it so much.
Trust me, it’s so good to have a black and white preview of what the final image is going to be.
And the quality when you download it… just amazing. We are very close to do reportage with our phones.
Just love this phone, even if I’m not a tech and I only look at the photo side.
Some of the best shots I had in the last 25 years on location came out during the prep moments, up close and personal images, maybe one day we can make a book with some of them. But today, to my eyes those are some of the best memories ever in my all life.
whle testing the light… checking the make up and I really asked for more contrast on her lips. More contrast would have been meaning more details now and the perfect balance between her eyes and her lips. This is not a final shot, just a first one but you can see what I mean.
Her hair style? I just love it.
you know when you are not still taking pictures but you just wanna check the light and everything else…
The one I used to play when I was shooting with films. Everyone today is going forward to the HD and final retouched perfect images.
But I step back and I still love the grain mostly with black and white.
I would do full editorials with grain. It’s giving me back a sense of pure photography with so many shades and a huge range of contrast.
Definition is something we always fight for, but grain is giving back the photography its own spirit, its own soul.
it was 1994, I was in LA and it was hard, trust me, so much hard. Alone, with just a few bucks in my pocket standing in front of the Hollywood sign with all the meetings that were going just wrong… not exactly the movie I was expecting for my life. Milan was giving me so many satisfactions, Paris the same and I loved to start to do more in London and other towns. But LA, just rejected ma completely at my first trip.
I was not depressed but I was down for sure. I went to Malibu with a friend, a girl which I was sharing the apartment with, for a walk on the beach and while she was telling me how many times she received a “thank you, we’ll let you know” at her auditions… (a few later she became a star), she also told me about an old saying that I’ll never foget:
“To be successful you need talent, enthusiasm and hard work. You only need to have 2 of them with yourself but make sure 1 of the 2 is always the enthusiasm”.
today when I’m back in LA and she’s in town we still have a drink somewhere or a walk in Malibu, talking about those times, the 90s. It was such an amazing trip.
you gotta be kidding… I saw this page today while waiting for my flight at the CDG and please what’s the meaning, I really can’t get it.
Under Irina, booked as testimonial for this well known italian brand of lingerie, they wrote photographie retouchée (Retouched image).
Ok, we all see it, and the retouch was a really cheap job, everyone can see it, I still can’t get the meaning to do it and to write it to show a very bad photo retouching job.
I am sorry, I really can’t get the meaning…
love this pic, good vibes and great memories, and to my eyes, those are the things that make this amazing job unique.
you meet amazing people every single day, some of them make a huge difference between a good shot and a great pic.
I’ve been shooting in Hollywood in the last 10 years listening the stories from the people I was having in front of my camera. A portrait has to be made by the subject’s feelings, you have to let the subject free to show what she or he wants to show. Something private and personal. That’s portrait, then we can sit at a table talking about exposure or shutter speed or what camere we can use… bla bla bla. The subjet matters.
And when you start listening to the stories they have to tell you, you’ll be amazed for the rest of your life.
as long as I understand and I like the social networks I must admit it, I’m not that social one. I mean I’m not the day sending happy holidays or best wishes on Christmas day or whatever.
I’m just not. I like to post sometimes but it’s not my daily job and I don’t know why I don’t feel at the moment the need to post every single day.
So, thanks for asking more pics and I’ll do my best on social networks but as always I’ll take my time.
I know you are a lot out there getting in touch and I really appreciate it a lot and if the social networks are what you like the most at the moment, I will post more.
more stills from the show. believe it or not, it’s a really hard job.
25 years on the road. Traveling around the globe to meet and portrait some of the most incredible humans ever. Good and bad times, good and bad people that are part of the game.
From a small town close to Milan where everything was about fashion in the 90s, I grew up following my dreams and probably I’m still doing it.
Such an incredible journey.
If I could go back in time…? Well I’d place the same, right the same steps.
