Davide Bellocchio is an Advertising Photographer, starting working as Art Director, his photographer’s carrier began with reportage and documentary photography. This is what he writes about himselves:
‘Since I was a kid I naturally developed an attitude to visual art, a personal and emotional world that soon needed to get out. There was no much choice for me, that was my road, that was what I wanted to do, instinctively. My desire of expression and artistic gesture started to flew out of myself through the graffiti, the movement was finally spreading in Italy and I couldn’t wait to deep myself in. It was 1990 and I was dressed like LL Cool J, hanging around my neighbourhood with sketches book and spray in the backpack.
Few years later, right after graduating in Advertising and Communication in 1997, I started working as art director and got inspired by all the influences orbiting around that world, and made it mine. Photography was the one that most got me and I developed a real passion for reportage and documentary photography. The sketches book was already there, but the boundaries of my block were definitely broken and and my spray replaced by a Leica R4.
In 2001 I left the adv agencies world for good and founded a design/interactive/motion graphic/photography studio, Zona 13. Picking the name back from our graffiti crew, and basically oriented to all the disciplines, we have experimented quite a lot and lived a very hectic/creative/positive/exciting period. Commissions in the weekdays, shooting friends in the weekend. This is when the Leica became a Mamiya RZ. Things were becoming heavier. I was moving my first steps in the professional photographers society, entering again the advertising industry, but this time from the backdoor.
In 2010 the crew broke up, Zona 13 had to shut down and I left to New York, where after almost a year I got fully recharged. The time I spent in there helped me to realize that my little universe still needed a way out. That was how I started to work independently, along with my second hand Hasselblad H3.
Since then I found my way as a photographer. I have collaborated with most italian adv agencies, worked for many clients, got honoured with national and international advertising and photographic awards such Eurobest, Epica, ADCI, PX3, IPA, TIFA and more. My work as been included in Lürzer’s Archive and published in books, magazines and web all over the world. Recently I lived 3 years in Shanghai, facing a completely different culture and learning to respect what is different. But primarily, I became a happy dad.
I still find my job very challenging and exciting. I always loved the retouching side, which I personally execute since the beginning, and I’m more and more passionate now integrating the CGI endless possibilities. It’s always a great feeling when I can help a good idea to stand out’.
Davide uses Hasselblad H5 | davidebellocchio.com | instagram @davide_bellocchio_photography
