Alessandro was a classmate of mine at the “Cappiello” Academy of Graphics and Advertising in Florence. Coming from a bachelor's degree in Communication Sciences, he has always had a particular talent for writing and creative storytelling: an essential skill for those who, in an advertising agency, create the backbone of a campaign and any text that needs to be written for it.
We quickly became friends. He is an extremely lively, funny person, versatile in any situation thanks to his practicality and his ability to quickly find solutions and compromises. In class we often had fun creating playful texts and images that went beyond the assignments and shaped that “let's not take ourselves too seriously”. Now Alessandro (I still haven't figured out how he finds the time), besides working for an advertising agency in Viareggio and composing music for Carnival competitions, also writes novels.
In recent years he has published three books, has a few more in the pipeline, and works on story-writing projects for TV series… In short, if he were asked whether he'd like extra arms and hands, he certainly wouldn't say no.
Alessandro is now promoting his books, both through the publishing houses he works with and personally, holding conferences, presentations and school projects around Italy: that's why we decided to create some studio shots to be used for promotional purposes.
The novels starring in the shoot are: Hypno / Alive / The Screen and they all address the relationship between human beings and technology, telling different stories built on the dynamics of the mystery and thriller genres. The situations in his stories are unsettling and often bizarre, yet extremely realistic and plausible. In The Screen, for example, he explores the hidden world behind the screen of social network content moderation; in Alive we discover the double face of the Island of Elba between past and present with Artificial Intelligence at its core; and in Hypno we experience the point of view of today's teenagers subjugated by the power of social media challenges.
The set we chose for our portrait is minimal; I personally prefer the subject's character to speak for itself in the photo, isolated and real at the same time. Given the subject's sharp wit and the mysterious atmosphere of his books, I chose a strong, direct light that carves areas of shadow on the face, to give dynamism to the gaze and keep a sense of mystery in every shot.
Alessandro's clothing is just the way he likes it: extroverted and colourful, an important touch to complete the portrait of the author. In line with his novels, which are equally colourful and graphically bold.
You can see everything else here… thanks for reading!
