EARLY WORKS
Retrospective

A collection that embodies the spirit of my formative journey as a photographer, showcasing moments of wonder and exploration from my early creative years.

As a teenager, I drifted through life without a clear calling. I was a certified troublemaker—the kind of kid whose name echoed daily through school hallways, often accompanied by a teacher’s exasperated tone. My pranks were intricate and relentless, much to the dismay of my parents, whose lives were models of discipline and achievement. My father, a lawyer with an affinity for precision, and my mother, an architect with an eye for structure, had envisioned a bright future for me—one that, at the time, I seemed destined to defy.

Then, unexpectedly, a singular moment struck me like lightning. I watched A Clockwork Orange by Stanley Kubrick. It was more than a film; it was a revelation, a seismic shift. The screen faded to black, but my mind remained ablaze. For the first time, I felt passion—not the slow, steady kind that grows over time, but a fire that erupted suddenly, consuming me whole. I was no longer adrift; I had a direction. The moving image had claimed me.

Like countless teenage cinephiles, I fell into the all-too-familiar obsession with Kubrick. His work became my bible, his interviews my scripture. His misanthropy resonated with my adolescent cynicism, that peculiar mix of rebellion and disaffection that so often fuels the creative spark. For some, that angst finds its outlet in music, but I lacked the ear for it. What I did have was an eye—a knack for framing, for finding beauty in the overlooked.

Photography became my rebellion, my voice. I traded my scooter for my first Canon camera and began to document the world obsessively. My subjects were anything and everything: my parents, friends, classmates, strangers on the street, even trash piles and wild animals. Light and composition became my playground, and I threw myself into it with a teenager’s blind arrogance, certain I could capture the world and bend it to my will.

By the time I was 18, I left my home in Italy and moved to the United States to study cinematography. Out of the institutions I applied to, Columbia College in Chicago was my golden ticket—a school that still taught the craft of shooting on celluloid film, even as digital dominated the industry. Back in 2013, film was considered a relic, a romantic but impractical art form. Few foresaw the analog resurgence that would sweep through the industry a few years later, and I count myself lucky to have learned on the medium that taught me the tactile poetry of light and shadow.

At Columbia, my technical skills flourished. Until then, I’d been relying on instinct, but now I had the tools to refine it. Professors pulled back the curtain on the alchemy of lighting, and my photography evolved. Natural light, once my trusted ally, gave way to calculated compositions with artificial lighting. Shadows became as vital as illumination, and every frame carried intention. My images transformed from spontaneous snapshots into carefully crafted visual narratives.

Chicago itself became my muse. The city felt like the cinematic worlds I had adored in the films of Jim Jarmusch—gritty, weathered, and alive with eccentric characters shaped by the rugged individualism of American culture. These streets were a stark contrast to the traditional rhythms of Europe.

I wandered the city, photographing its forgotten corners and the people who inhabited them. There were drifters with untold stories, shopkeepers clinging to fading dreams, and artists painting against the tide of indifference. They were my kindred spirits, and their existence affirmed something I had long suspected: the strange and beautiful worlds of film weren’t entirely fictional. They existed, waiting to be discovered.

My freshman year felt like an awakening—a blend of technical discovery and raw exploration. Photography gave me a way to channel my youthful bravado into something meaningful, and film gave me the framework to bring those visions to life. Looking back, those years in Chicago were more than an education; they were the prologue to a story I’m still writing, one frame at a time.

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