"Photography is the art of not looking for it. An art of waiting. The art of letting it come to us. An art of listening."-Robert Leverant from Zen in the Art of Photography
"Over the years I must have spent thousands of hours silently brushing on the liquid coatings, preparing each sheet in anticipation of reaching the perfect print." - Irving Penn
I was born and raised in Italy. I lived on a farm in Aprilia and subsequently moved to Rome and then Milan. I am Jewish and have seen the Jewish ghettos in Rome that housed 50,000 people in a very small area. It was a reservation for Jews during WWII. Living near this ghetto/reservation influenced me greatly. As such, I have always felt an affiliation with Indigenous People everywhere. In the Italy of my youth, Spaghetti Westerns reigned supreme. I fell in love with the landscapes, and the people portrayed.
My mother was an artist in Italy, and taught painting. Art was always an integral part of our home. In particular Photography, which has always been an important part of my life. The darkroom became a place of discovery. I switched from a traditional silver gelatin darkroom to a darkroom specifically dedicated to the production of platinum/palladium prints.
Currently, I am the Platinum/Palladium printer for Printlab. Printlab is the premier professional photo lab in Chicago.
I also create Piezography Prints (in house) from digital files. I first learned Piezography printing in order to make large negatives to be used for Platinum/Palladium Prints. However, final prints made with Piezography inks on archival paper are stunning in their own right. Piezography is a unique printing process that uses dedicated monochrome inks (ranging from black to very light gray) instead of the three to four ink shades typically used by Canon and Epson. I use the Piezography Pro ink set which has the greatest tonal range of any digital black and white printing process. There's a depth glow to Piezography prints that just isn't available in black and white prints produced using standard Epson or Canon color inks.
I teach Photography and live in the Chicago area with my dog Bodhi.