About

Wonder at the natural world came first, long before the camera. I grew up in Apulia, in the south of Italy, one of the most beautiful corners I know, in a family that taught me to look closely and stay curious about it — I've come to believe that kind of attention is one of the richest experiences a life can hold. I have a humanistic background, and years spent in the north of Italy, between the sea of Liguria and the peaks of the Dolomites, only deepened it: two loves, water and mountain, that still shape almost everything I shoot.

The camera came later, as a way to freeze a feeling and carry it home: the animal before it notices you, the light an hour before anyone else is awake, the quiet at the edge of a place most people only pass through. I'm drawn to subjects that reward patience and research — wildlife and travel, the places where land meets water, earth meets sky, or the world goes quiet underwater. I started as a diver, and I still go looking for the encounter in the wild: an intimate search for something pristine, more than for the postcard.

What I find out there comes with an obligation. These are places under pressure, and to photograph them is also to bear quiet witness for them — for the conservation of the habitats we share, and for a safer future for the species that live in them. It is also, I hope, something to pass on: the wonder itself, and a world still wild enough to hold it, handed down to my son the way mine was handed down to me.

◦Alessandro Grieco