Here I am, trying to make sense of a bunch of scattered notes written during my trip to Thailand. It was in Chiang Dao that I first started reflecting on my first year of taking photography seriously. Hard to believe, but it’s already been a year since I gifted myself a Fujifilm X-T5 for Christmas.

From that moment on, so much has happened. Since I don’t want time to pass without acknowledging it and giving it the importance it deserves, I’m here now, trying to make sense of the rollercoaster that 2024 has been.

I came to Porto for a weekend with two goals in mind: (1) to have my first solo trip fully focused on photography, and (2) to allow some space for my mind to wander and reflect.

I need space for reflection. I often make the mistake of obsessing over a question, continuously ruminating and searching for an answer—but that’s not how the mind works best. What works best is to prompt your mind with a question and then do something else, allowing the mind the space to come up with an answer on its own. There’s a reason why the best ideas come in the shower or, less discussed, while sitting on the toilet.

Editing and sequencing, especially when you want to tell a story through photos, is hard. And heartbreaking at times.

I’m going through one of the final edits of the first issue of “Wandering Through Life”, a magazine dedicated to the places, lives, and stories I wander through. It will be the physical companion to this digital journal that will be released once in a while.

I took this pic while rushing to the train yesterday. I loved how the composition looked, the tube in the foreground giving depth, and the person in the background framed by the concrete and the cables surrounding them. My eyes snapped while the escalator was taking me away from that moment.

I was questioning whether I should take out the camera or not, but then I just took the phone and snapped this moment.

Berlin is a second home to me. I lived there for eight years, and during this time, I loved the city, hated it and loved it again. I left since two years in favour of the warmer and sunnier Barcelona, but I still visit often for work reasons and to spend time with people I love.

Last week, I visited for the first time with the camera, and it was a great feeling to rediscover the city again. It also happened with my hometown, which I discovered again after I left when I was 24 — seeing places you were used to passing through with different eyes. Discover streets that you’ve never had the chance to cross. People, places and faces.

I think my first digital relationship was with the guy hosting this carnival, Manu. It was the result of a #followfriday - the good old days of Twitter.

I’ve always been an in-person person, but this has shifted my needs with time. Living in 5 different cities and 4 different countries left me with a widespread family (chosen and blood make no difference to me).

I had the luck of spending some time with Manu in person, but, as with most of my digital relationships, the connection is more scattered than daily. I tend to be present and physically connect more with the people around me.

I always felt the urge to explore and express myself in several ways — mainly through words, music, photos and interactions.

Through time, I experienced fluctuation between over-structuring full optional solutions (website, studio and digital cameras) to a more minimal and portable ones (everything that would fit in a small backpack and be easily movable).

Lately, I’m feeling the urge to create more and in more spontaneous ways. I’m in a moment in my life where I want to remove any friction between myself and my expression and do it in the rawest possible way.

Today, we stumbled upon a culture clash during a conversation on Company North Star and Objective and Key Results (OKRs): pragmatic northern Europe vs the loose southern one.

Living in Berlin for a considerable amount of years but coming from Italy, I consider myself a way in between; if on one side I aim to a goal and reach it, on the other hand, I tend to have loose plans to be open to serendipity or influences during the process.

While taking a piano lesson yesterday I was asking why we repeat always chord of A or G and the answer is because we are “manipulated” by pop musica that are made mainly by those keys. And day by day we start to like it, and every new song will reinforce our taste.

And then a completely different song appears on our automated playlist.

And how we react? It sounds weird, let’s skip.

What is reality? Is it the same for everyone? Is it my reality the same of my mom? Is it the same of my friend from my hometown?

I’m thinking a lot about that after traveling for a week back in my hometown. Things that for me are crystal clear or part of the day by day, are not existing there. And that makes me question, what is the reality? Is it mine or theirs? Is it both?

Yesterday talking about the German elections a question arose in my mind:

“how is it possible that in a country like Germany, with a not so easy past could give 12.6% of votes to the right-wing party?!”

This brings me back to a week while having a break in my hometown with two of my close friends from Hyper Island. We were talking about democracy, immigration and how policymakers interpret the mood of the citizens.

The discussion started from Brexit and I was questioning how young people could vote ‘Yes’ to such a proposal. I was pointed out as ‘the guy that doesn’t have empathy and cannot understand the people feelings and fears’.

It happened again, yesterday while I was trying to solve some bureaucracy stuff the nice girl at the phone replied me “wir sind in Deutschland und wir sprechen nur Deutsch” that means “we are in Germany and we speak only German”.

Every time I’m getting this reply I have a mix of feeling, from the need to improve my very basic German to the rejection of the idea that in a public office of an amazing metropolis and capital like Berlin you can’t find someone that can help an english speaker on the phone.

Often people remember me as the one who always wears a smile. They say that I look like Buddha and they ask me how can that be possible.

Smile is fundamental for me, it brings positive vibes to you and to everyone around you, even if they don’t notice it they are influenced by it.

We co-founded Fattelo! remotely on 2011 and we keep up to work like this because of living in different cities. We are lucky, we are in a similar time zone so we can avoid the difficulties of a very different time zones.

Since I moved to Berlin I extended this method of work to my italian clients and I learned more about how to manage a “virtual” work relationship especially collaborating with someone who is used to work in your same room.

I was an engineer before becoming designer and for a long time I hated writing code, but now I feel so lucky because I finally understand that a designer and a coder can live safely in the same soul, and this stuff is very important as never before.