Michael Pezzei
@maikhool_pezzei
Traveler and content creator based in New Zealand
I’ve always been dreaming about travelling this planet, having unforgettable experiences, exploring places with completely different colors, flavors and atmospheres. All of this didn’t happen straight away for me. While travelling I’ve seen plenty of young men, just over 18, who, just after finishing school, decided to catch a plane and fly to the other side of the world. My story is different. I was born in a tiny village in the mountains, where life is very basic and everyone’s goal is to finish school, find a long term job, build a house and get married. This is the reason why, as soon as I turned 18, I started working in my hometown and I ended up doing the same job in the same place for 7 years. There’s nothing bad in all of this, but at some point I realized that being able to travel only during my time off from work was not enough for me.
"So, when I turned 25, I quit my job and started to follow my way towards my dreams."
When you are in the second half of your twenties it’s not easy to leave all your certainties behind you. At that age your friends start to get married, or they are on the way to finish building their house. At this point I was feeling like a black sheep, but it was my decision and my answer to my concerns.
My passion for photography was born in a different way: it’s not cool to say, but at the beginning everything started because of social media. I wasn’t interested in photography at all when I was younger, but with social media I started looking at a lot of pictures from all around the world.
"Seeing these incredible captions of those stunning places pushed me to jump into this adventure."
When I read interviews of famous photographers, most of them say that since they were young they have always loved the arts… In my case, I have always felt some creative vibes inside me, but before starting doing photography I couldn’t understand, nor express this part of my soul. I’ve never really appreciated any kind of art at school and I used to hate drawing or learning about the great artists of the past. I guess I can say that the only form of art that I loved when I was young was the Barcelona of Pep Guardiola.
Now, photography is 100% part of my life, specifically when traveling, and by saying this I mean that my itineraries are mainly based on the places that I want to capture. Unfortunately, I’m not able to just travel: along the way I also have to stop and work, because with the money I make with photography I’m not even able to buy a Subway sandwich. Obviously, I hope that in the future my passion for travelling and photography will turn into a job. This is my biggest dream and I’m working hard to make this happen.
"I’m happy to see some recognition of that, though I know that in 2020 there are thousands of people out there who are hunting for the same opportunity."
To improve my photography skills and be able to reach the level that I want, I try to compare my work with the best ones among the other photographers out there, the ones who always create something special and raise the level every single day. I closely follow my favorite photographers and try to learn something from every single one of them. My biggest focus is to take the pictures thinking with my own mind, without using any preset. I try not to shoot the same pictures as everybody else, even if this doesn’t always work: there are places where the perfect shot is simply the one that everybody takes. I mean, if a lot of people are taking the same picture, there must be a reason.
"Even when having the same picture in terms of composition, you can distinct yourself when editing the photo."
My gameplay when I edit a picture is to think for a while before making changes: I need to remember the vibes of that place, I need to remember why I wanted that photo, and I need to understand what I have to do with it.
A photo is not like a video, where you have the sound of the waves, the birds’ songs or the whisper of the wind between the trees. In photography it is harder to transmit feelings and experiences to the people who look at the photo; that’s why you need to think well on what you have to do.
With some photos, mostly the ones you take in the first or in the last hours of the day, it’s quite easy to reach what you want, to recreate that magic moment. But when you are travelling you can’t always shoot at the times that you want, so sometimes when you download the files on your laptop they don’t look good. That stunning place that you loved during your visit, can look flat and empty on your screen. That gives a bad feeling, it’s like hitting a hard wall and very disappointing. When this happens, I guess you can’t do much. You can move the sliders of your editing software for hours but the result will be just worse and pathetic. The best thing you can do, I believe, is to go out for a walk with your camera and maybe you will be able to catch something else.
"Or maybe just go out for a beer, that’s always a good idea. Then hopefully, the day after with a clean mind, that horrible picture will look a little bit better."
Once I finished editing and I am satisfied, I obviously like to share some of them on social media. What I don’t want though is people to think that I do it to show off, to let the world know that I travel a lot or that my life is awesome. Rather I want my pictures to be an inspiration for others to travel, explore and discover more. Sharing photos is a way to learn about what is out there, besides that what we already know. I got triggered by these kind of photos on social media myself, and now I have seen a lot with my own eyes.
"I wish to achieve that as well, and that people say: ”wow, what an incredible place! I want to go there!”
Speaking about incredible places… I just love New Zealand! For photography, this country is on top of my list. This place is for a photographer like what is Disneyland for a kid, I mean, you have everything: those fairytale lakes, mountains, volcanoes, lighthouses over the cliffs and all this in a small island in the middle of the sea, it’s just amazing. For a guy like me, who grew up in a small town, things like these look incredible. For travelling though, my choice is quite different. Road tripping around NZ is great, but the journey that I will never forget is the month I spent in South Africa. It’s is a stunning place, the opportunity to see all those animals is incredible and the landscapes are awesome too. The other side is that it’s not an easy destination to travel through. When you leave “the safe zones” and you travel around the country, the trip can turn into a hard challenge. Opposed to NZ, Europe or Southeast Asia, where you can move day by day without being super organized, there are other places where you need to have a plan b, otherwise you are likely to find yourself in some bad situations.
"South Africa made me realize that; it was hard but it was very important for me as I learned a lot from that trip."
Since I left my small hometown to travel, I have learned so many things I would otherwise never have touched upon. The same with photography… The one incredible thing that photography has taught me, is to stop and take the time to breathe in the places that I see. Before taking a picture you have to think about what you really want in your frame; this allows you to look at the scenery from different perspectives and to enjoy what you have in front of you. These mountains, these lakes and these oceans are not going anywhere, they are not in a rush, they were here before us and they will stay there after our existence. We are the only ones who are always rushing everywhere.
"In this fast world, the opportunity to take your time and admire the landscape is a privilege."
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