It was probably written in the fate that in my life I should have "the head in the clouds" since and where I was born on May 2th, 1960. For my birth country, Libya is just over a strip of fertile land, closed In a inhospitable desert and a nature of extraordinary beauty.
Since there was little to do in the desert, my parents and relatives, who formed one of the Italian groups in the city, used to spent entire weekends in military camps on the banks of that amazing sea that I still consider one of the most beautiful in all over the Mediterranean or inland to the limit of the fertile coastal strip of a hundred kilometers at most.
It was therefore natural and inevitable that my passion for that mysterious and hidden world grew in me and that I immediately began to interest in that fascinating universe. At first I tried, like all of us, to emulate the adults in their hunting trails, but I knew immediately that this was not my way, and in me the desire grew to learn more about the world of nature and its inhabitants.
And then I began to look more closely at the sea, the shells, but also the reptiles, the varans, the chameleons, the birds of prey, and the multitude of small and colorful birds such as swarms, grooms, bee-eaters, peaks, etc.
When I was little more than 10 Years and I was totally immersed in this wonderful world, the trauma of the Libyan revolution and the subsequent expulsion of 30,000 Italian citizens from the country intervened. This brought me, my parents and my little brother to a pilgrimage of about a year for Italy in reception centers and various hotels, until we moved to Latina and we started a new life here. And I must say that maybe I was lucky because this city is located at the limits of the Circeo National Park, which, though abnormal and attacked by excessive antropism, still has valuable areas, especially for the migratory birdlife. Here, that little voice never fit, started to feel louder, pushing and forcing me to go back to my old love, the nature.
Meanwhile, I had started experimenting with the camera, an old Practica PLC3 with Pentacon 50mm 1.8, which I secretly took away from my father.
With the extension tubes first and a soft hand bell later, I started taking the first macro photographs. After the marriage with Rosangela, the birth of Lorenzo and Ludovica and the peacefulness of the work, the house and all the things of common mortals, togheter with my little brother, Maurizio, who shared my passion, we decided to do something more of simple end-to-end collecting. So we founded the Popular Tyrrhenian Natural Sciences University (U.P.T.S.N.), of which I am currently Vice President and Academic Director.
Since 1999, this Cultural Educational Association has been involved in the research, study and divulgation of topics related to the Natural and Marine Sciences. In this perspective, here is the planning and realization of events and projects increasingly important, starting from the didactics in the schools of the Province of Latina, to the five editions of "Gems in the Blue" which saw the participation of thousands of students and had a national eco with more than 20,000 visitors over a total of two months.
Along with that of the malacology, research and collection of Olividae, a family of shells that has always fascinated me with

intrinsic complexity in recognition and classification, I always cultivate two other great passions: photographing (especially wild animals and macro photography) and diving both for study purposes and for simple entertainment and fun. After a nasty accident happened in 2001, which has partially reduced the use of my right leg, I decided to stimulate my passion for naturalistic photography. I started scanning about 4,000 slides in my old archive with a huge homework. Meanwhile, I changed my equipment by migrating from Nikon to Canon (only for the purpose of finding some lens and not of quality) and I started to encourage photo travel. I've been so in the Caribbean, the USA, Iceland, Norway, Scotland, England, Croatia, Spain, Greece, Portugal and in a hundred other places, always looking for the perfect landscape or the rarest animals.
I also started to teach photography by setting up photography courses (also within the Aeronautical Military Force where I work) and organizing trips and workshops in Italy and abroad. I have been organizer, curator and responsible for two national and international photographic contest of FIAF circuit of remarkable success and responsible for organizing photographic exhibitions.
Today I can say that my concept of photography is increasingly migrating to a more artistic and perhaps more abstract conception, always in naturalistic photography. So I'm fascinated, for example, by great photographers such as Art Wolfe, Hans Strand and Frans Lanting, who travel through this way. When this quest seems to me mature I intend to make a large-scale exhibition on art photography.


My first macro shot with a Praktica PLC3 and Pentacon 1.8 and extension pipes

For now I continue to follow this road that seems very interesting and to look in the sky, always with my head in the clouds, a flash that announces the arrival of a small winged friend and forces me to run to take the camera to look for immortalize it and to share it with the others on this site.

Hi everyone, and have a nice visit!