An Exclusive Interview with Andrea Migliari

Born in Italy in 1981, Andrea Migliari and his family moved after 12 years spent in the big city of Milan to a small countryside village close to the lake Maggiore called Castelletto Ticino. He left school at 17 to start his working life as a junior carpenter and after a while he decided to take a gap year in London. In the English capital he used to work in many different places while studying English in the London West Collage. Now he is living in Italy, close to Bergamo where he works for a rental car company. Since he was a teenager he used to take pictures of everything he came across; the beauty of the lake and the marvelous places in the area of Verbano made him become a passionate photographer. He started using a film camera and learning dark room processing in black and white, and then finally moved to digital in 2009 when he bought his first Canon 50D. He attended various photography workshop and post-processing courses that made him developed a particular workflow from the raw capture to the final image. He loves taking picture of everything he likes, from landscapes to portraits and live music event. Some of his pictures were published in a prestigious Italian art magazine Overart. He won the photography competition contest of “Passione Italia” in 2011 with the photo “Quando la città dorme” that was used as a cover image for the White Pages of the Bergamo area. He tries to share his love for photography and visual art through his images, knowing that the beauty may be found just across the street corner.

In this “Exclusive Interview” section, today we have the opportunity to talk with Andrea Migliari, as his photograph was winner of Photo of the Month – 36th Month, 2nd Place. Let’s discover more about Andrea Migliari, and his forays into photography in the following interview with him.

Light & Composition: Greetings from Light & Composition, Andrea. How does it feel being selected as the winner of Photo of the Month, 36th Month, 2nd Place?

Andrea Migliari: It’ s been a pleasure and an honour to be selected the winner of Photo of the month contest, I’m really exited and I’d like to thank Light and Composition for the unwavering support and the opportunity of sharing my work with others.

L&C: Your photographs, “Credit Crunch”, was selected as Photo of the Month, is a beautiful conceptual photograph with artistic perspective, correct lighting, and very well presented. Overall, a great composition! Tell us more about your experience of taking this photograph.

Andrea: This picture was taken in an abandoned farmhouse close to where I live, I’ve been there once and I knew there was a sofa, I bought a copy of an Italian economic newspaper so I planned the shot and made every effort to obtain it in the way I had in my mind. The economic crises was and is still biting hard here in Italy, every day there are bad news about closing factories and unemployment growth and it seems there is so less that we can do.

That’s the concept I wanted to bring up, the uncertainty of the present while days roll by and hope for the future to turn out ok…

L&C: Besides this winning photograph, many people liked and voted for other photographs of yours in the Photo of the Month contest. You must be proud. How do you see your journey to the world of photography so far?

Andrea: I’m really glad that so many people enjoyed my photographs, I thank you again for this opportunity. I love photography, is a way to express my feelings and my curiosity. I consider myself at the beginning of my journey, looking forward to learning new things and share my work with people.

L&C: We see so many different genres of photography in your portfolio. Do you like a particular genre of photography?

Andrea: I shoot a wide variety of things, when I see something inspiring I take my lens cap off and start shooting. Recently I’ve been doing some live music photography and I really enjoyed it.

L&C: One of the keys to any style of photography is visualization. Please tell us how you started this process and what you did afterwards.

Andrea: I’ve always been interested in visual arts since I was a child. I think the best way to learn is to watch the work of people that came before you. I love painters, the Caravaggio’s contrast between light and shadow, the Rembrandt lightning or the possibility of expressing concepts through images as in Dali’s canvas have always captured my attention and are at the very heart of photography. When I see something that I want to shoot I always try to figure out what would be the best possible way and it often requires more that one shot. In this way I have the possibility to work my subject, to understand what is necessary and what is useless in terms of composition and thanks to digital that is so easy nowadays.

After I compose the image I start working on light, and that is a matter that can make all the difference, in fact the word photography comes from two Greek
words “phos” and “graphis” and they means “writing with light”….

L&C: What advice would you give our readers who want to take part in the journey around the world with photography?
Andrea: I don’t feel to give any particular advice, I think the most important thing is to follow your intuition and remembering that life is like photography, you can always change prospective just by changing your point of view.

L&C: Thank you, Andrea, for sharing your feelings and experiences with us.