Francesco: I think it was both good and bad. It was the first year where this photography thing became a real, intense job. I feel like a professional photographer now [laughing] which is nice because you get to live a lot of experiences, but on the other hand, I think I have difficulty in keeping up with what I really want to do, as opposed to what would be good for my career. You know how you can get sucked into those decisions that are not necessarily good for your career? So I wish I could get myself to take more time off.

Mo: What do you think influenced that intensity? Was it the caliber of clients or needs?

Francesco: I think maybe the caliber but also the number of projects.

Mo: How did you navigate around that?

Francesco: I'm really lucky that I have close friends that work in photography. I would say they're more senior than me in terms of career, so they're always a reliable source when I have doubts. And also, I have an agent who's nice and very willing to discuss what I should or shouldn't pursue. Those two things help a lot.

Mo: And starting out, I assume seeing how people like [Ryan] McGinley worked helped you see how someone handles large projects. Did you assist him?

Francesco: I didn't really assist him, but I worked in his studio. It was kind of random because right after university my best friend moved to New York and I wanted to move there, so I sent an email to Ryan and his studio manager replied saying I could do an internship there. It was nice because they were lovely people and it was a good introduction to New York since I didn't know many people there. I didn't know much about photography to be honest, so I didn't do much photography related work. It was more day-to-day, office related work.

Mo: How old were you at the time?

Francesco: It was 2010, so I was 25-years-old, and I was in New York for four years.

Mo: Where did you go from there?

Francesco: I went to Switzerland because I wanted to do an MFA. I considered a U.S. university for a bit but they were ridiculously expensive. So I found this university in Switzerland called ECAL that seemed cool and very cheap. I didn't do photography there, though. I did a fine art master's program which was a great experience and a good excuse to leave New York. 

Francesco: I did my master's from 2014 to 2016. At the time, they only took maybe five to eight students per year which made it a very small program. It was based on one-on-one studio visits so we had very good professors come in once a month. You could book a 45-minute session with them and speak about your work or whatever you want since they were informal chats. Some of the really amazing professors were practicing artists; some were curators; others were contemporary philosophers. It was a diverse group of people you had access to. 

Francesco: Plus, you had pretty amazing resources at ECAL like a CNC machine, laser cutters, printers, multiple Imacon scanners, and whatever you wanted they had. For me, it was a really great time and the other students in my course were from very different backgrounds. I don't think anyone else was working on photography. It was stimulating and I met people who I'm still friends with today and learned a lot from them.

Mo: Where did you find yourself after graduating?

Francesco: I was working here and there as a photographer to support me through the master’s program. It was my job already but I wasn't extremely busy. After ECAL I didn't necessarily want to go back to New York, so I thought London would be the perfect place between Milan and New York so I moved to London.

Mo: You live between both Milan and London now, yes?

Francesco: My studio is in London but I spend quite a bit of time in Milan. I would say that I'm in Milan every month-and-a-half for a week.

Mo: What promotes that separation? 

Francesco: Milan is a great place and the place I know with the highest quality of life. I love it here but it's quite a small place. A lot of interesting things are happening here but I feel much more relaxed in London—there are fewer distractions. It's a very big city so I love the concept of anonymity here. People are busy and you still have local communities but at the same time, you can mind your own business. And there are people here who can keep you grounded. 

Francesco: Sometimes I tend to think I'm a good photographer. [both laughing] But if you live in London, it's easy to mention much more talented people in the world! Also, I think it's a place with good values. It's an expensive city buy I find it a little less success-driven and not as money-entered as I found New York. It's a chill place for me.

Mo: It's interesting that you say that it's more chill. I remember talking with Samuel Bradley about the contrast between New York and London. Granted, this conversation was two years ago—and I’ve grown a better understanding of the city since then—but we discussed how people in London are more willing to meet and collaborate, whereas in New York you're generally fighting harder for that opportunity.  

Francesco: I'm not sure actually.

Mo: Interesting.

Francesco: It's a little clique-y. I'm not too good at approaching people and saying, "Hi, I'm Francesco!" I should do it more. [both laughing] I met nice people in New York, as I did in London. I think the value system is a bit different. I'm not a very jealous person but in New York I was more paranoid about my career. There's probably this kind of state of mind where people are aware of what others are doing. [pauses] I'm not sure how to explain it.

Francesco: New York is maybe more inclusive than London because in New York you go to a show and you meet everybody. They say hello to you and there's this chit-chat and ease of meeting people. When I lived in New York in the Lower East Side, twice a week there would be an event and I would see all the people kind of in my radar in terms of people's work I liked. But it's difficult for me to say because I wasn't working that much there. The first year or two I made money other ways so I didn't have access to certain career dynamics.

Mo: What or who has informed your photography the most?

Francesco: There is a timeline, certainly. I studied history and economics so when I graduated in 2008 during the financial crisis, it was very difficult to get a job in London. That's when I started to take photography a bit more seriously since I didn't have anything else to do. At the time, I was very ignorant about photography so I thought, “Oh, I could do this; this is going to be very easy,” but it took me a while to realize how difficult it was going to be.

Francesco: Nowadays I try to stay away from photography a little bit. I'm sensitive about the information I absorb so I don't want to look at it too much, especially contemporary photography. I look at the work from my friends and books, though.

Mo: How is your relationship with social media?

Francesco: Oh, man, it's terrible! Did you know that Apple has all these stats on your phone about screen time now? The first time I saw that I was like, "Woah, I'm wasting my life! What the fuck am I doing?" [both laughing] I set all these filters so that I can't use Instagram for more than half an hour a day, but I ignore the time limit sometimes. I'm not against social media but as with everything it's all about maintaining balance. This is all still taking shape.

Mo: Speaking of balance, what do you find is the hardest thing to balance in your work and life?

Francesco: There's a balance between personal and professional life, which can be a struggle because I don't work in an office. I wake up in the morning and do work. I don't really go to the office and work from nine to five. Sometimes I'll work weekends but work overnight so I think I could use more of a structure. What I'm struggling with is the balance between the mindset of needing to do a commissioned job and one’s own personal research. They definitely overlap and that’s nice, however, sometimes I question what really informs my output more.

Francesco: For a while, I did work for independent magazines that let me do whatever I want, so I thought that was personal work but you need a team, a specific day, “x” amount of pictures need to happen in “x” amount of hours, and there are so many external variables. I've been looking for a lot of the work I did when I didn't really have any weight on my shoulders in terms of how the work was going to be perceived. I kind of like how free that work was so I'm trying to train myself to go back to that mindset that is free of worrying about the image I'm going to make.

Mo: I think that's something a lot of artists navigate. Do you have an idea of how people perceive your work?

Francesco: In general?

Mo: Sure. We can talk about clients or the audience, though.

Francesco: I think in terms of clients I have a pretty okay idea about how they perceive me because I get sent mood boards by new clients where they show what they like and ask if I can do something like that. I think that kind of fucks you up a little bit because you start to give value to that. It's not a little game anymore, it becomes your job, life, and, for better or for worse, a part of your identity. All of a sudden to make work you have to check all these boxes. In terms of other people, I'm not sure. I think the friends I talk with the most will sometimes really like my work and sometimes they don't.

Mo: What do you find are some of the most important visual characteristics in your work? To me, it seems like composition is one of them.

Francesco: I think composition is important and I tend to think a lot about the difference between language and content. Amazing content executed with unappealing language maybe can work, or maybe some really stupid content executed beautifully can work, too. But recently I've been working in a more instinctual way, I think. It's based on the belief that if you're an intelligent person, and I'm not saying I am [both laughing], but I need to believe that I am otherwise what's the point? So, if you're an intelligent person, you tend to absorb information that becomes embodied in your instincts when you take photographs.

Francesco: Instead of doing very didactic work that's based on a concept and executed in a way where everything fits and is very logical, I try to make more instinctual photographs. Sometimes it works and sometimes I feel like I shoot myself in the foot. And there's also this fine line between putting the work in and not overthinking stuff and going with the flow. Sometimes I feel like not overthinking stuff is the way to go but then I feel like I'm a lazy idiot because I could've put more work in and the images would've been better. It's all a mess. I'm extremely confused, to be honest. [both laughing]

Mo: What do content and language mean to you in a photograph?

Francesco: Content is normally the subject and the subject can be a symbol for something else. Language is a mainly aesthetic translation. Advertising is language, you know. Stock photography is another kind of language. I think advertising is quite a good way to describe this. People think advertising is shit but it's only the content that is shit. The language is beautiful because it's developed to be accessible generally for a wide range of people.

Mo: There’s something powerful in creating something widely accessible with an emotional texture to it. I think why so many people are apprehensive about advertising is because it introduces more parameters than artists ideally want.  

Francesco: Yeah, and I actually like advertising sometimes. I also think that it's good to have parameters. I think I have a tendency to make things a little weird and sometimes it feels like a cheap trick. It's very easy to shoot an image of a bicep with an insect on it with a shiny texture and pat yourself on the back because it's weird and you and your friends like it. 

Mo: I want to reel this chat back to the topic of being weird, because I think that's a good characteristic in areas of your work. One project that comes to mind is your recent PRISCAVera campaign. How did the conversation of the subject doing martial arts come about?

Francesco: Ah, that was a fun shoot. You know the culture now is very much about the problems of patriarchy and how to dismantle its mechanisms. I think there are a lot of people who feel that men had a masterplan to accumulate power and have it better than everybody else. That might be the case, I don’t know. If I think about it, I always perceived a bit of a silly vibe from most men in my life. There’s big egos but deep down a knowledge that they are useless. These are all very personal observations and I do not mean to generalize, but yeah, I often found women in my life better examples of strength and endurance. 

Francesco: So, yeah that’s was very vaguely the theme for the PRISCAVera campaign: strong women and stupid men. I'm not trying to make that campaign political, it was just fun. But that was the loose conceptual framework behind it.

Mo: Are there any shoots that come to mind that had a different context from what you originally aimed for? And when you find yourself in those situations, do you feel like you're able to characterize the image towards that goal after it's been shot?

Francesco: Oh, man, it's a mess. It's all very confusing. Sometimes you want to do something and then you can't but then the shoot turns out amazing. Sometimes you do exactly what you wanted and it's terrible so whatever the shoot is, in the end, is what it should be. I also don't believe the more you are anal and try to execute your vision perfectly the better the images would be, at least for me. I kind of need some openness on a shoot.

Mo: How did you realize not everything has to be perfect?

Francesco: I learned it through experiences. I think sometimes you plan a shoot carefully and sometimes it won't be amazing. And sometimes you get in a car with the person you have to shoot and just shoot randomly in half a day and end up enjoying the pictures. I think there is a constant tension between those two ways of working. I try to plan certain parts of the shoot and a general concept, but then I also allow shooting something that wasn't planned.

Mo: Generally speaking, are there things you try not to touch?

Francesco: I'm not sure. If it's a location shoot, you have to choose the right location that you know will be stimulating for you on set. But I'm not going to say, “We're going to shoot this picture here, and that picture there,” or, “This shot will be at this time at this part of the location.” I think this is kind of the way I tend to deal with things.

Mo: What seemed like the ultimate goal when you first started in photography?

Francesco: As I said before, I got into photography without really thinking about it. I definitely did not have an ultimate goal. At the moment, my goal is to make work that stimulates me.