It’s possible Gianluca Fellini (@gianlucafellini) was made in a lab to make art and foster jealousy in the hearts of every person who encounters his bio. Born in Rimini, Italy in 1981, he grew up with a hobby photographer father, but didn’t connect with the camera until a surfing trip to California in 2004. So strong was the pull of the arts that he tossed aside his career as a professional basketball player and his law studies in Italy and moved to New York.
Now, Fellini works on international editorials and campaigns, as well as his own personal art and video projects. He’s also developed a passionate yoga and meditation practice that keeps him balanced and grounded when the world confronts him with difficulty. So, basically, he’s a super handsome Italian yoga practitioner who abandoned a pro sports career and a legal education to become one of the premiere contemporary photographers working today. Oh, and also he’s related to Federico Fellini.
On a break from work abroad, the photographer spoke with us about the trajectory of his career, his spirituality, and building a home base. Sadly, he didn’t provide the name of the lab where he was formed, so you can’t make a “home version” to help you with selfies and sun salutations. You just have to read the interview and find your own inspiration.
Where are you right now?
I am in Bali.
Working, vacationing?
Yeah, no, no, no working. I never just vacation. It’s the concept of my business, unifying my traveling passion and my personal research passion into my work. So, I’m here. At the same time, I’m doing a lot of creative stuff but also, self-willing, therapy.
Where are you from originally?
I’m from Italy, a small town called Rimini, south of Venice. The outside of Venice. I don’t know if you know the Italian director.
We were curious whether or not you were related.
On a far distance, yes, but not like first grade related, but yes.
How did you become interested in photography?
I was always attracted by images as a kid, so I was staring at those big boats and then I saw my Dad had a camera and I fell in love actually with the object itself. For many years, when I was a kid, I was going through his cases, lenses, but never actually really used one until one day my dad explained to me … I took a camera to California for three months. I was there surfing on the coast and taking photos. Back then, I was a professional basketball player and lawyer. Well, I wasn’t a lawyer yet.
I came back from the trip and I realized that I was doing something that I really liked. I was creating something. And when my dad told me, “You have a talent. Because, I wish I had taken those photos from my last 10 years of photography.” It was like, “Hey, I could make something out of this.” I love travel. I didn’t want to live in my city anymore. I was hunting for bigger and higher and different experiences. My heart wasn’t like beating anymore. You know when you are in your early twenties and you are trying to figure it out? “What it is I should try and do?” You don’t really know what you want to do.
And, so I took the camera and left for New York because I was thinking, “What’s the place where I can learn photography?” So I went to New York and lived there for eight years.
You just picked up and moved to New York?
Yeah.
Well, that is very exciting.
Yeah, it was. It was beautiful. The first time I went to New York was on vacation at Christmas. I felt this high dense air, which now I know is energy. Back then, I thought it was like, “Oh, there’s a different air.” And I couldn’t sleep, I would just walk around nights, taking photos. So, I came back home finishing my championship with basketball. Then, I was like, “Oh man, I left for California and now coming back, I don’t want to be here anymore.”
Then, I moved to New York and started working as a busboy for the first three years. When I moved there, I was 23, and I gave myself a time window to become a professional photographer before my thirties. I was like, “When I am in my thirties, I want to live only as a photographer.” And, I managed to be a professional photographer four years prior to that deadline. After three years of assisting, working in restaurants, promoting at night, and I was working a lot in the fashion industry; I was capable of being a photographer after three years. At the age of 26, I was living off of photography.
That’s amazing.
I was happy. It’s a balance. Working on myself. I just lost my Mom two months ago, two and a half months ago. It’s been very painful, especially after a recent heartbreaking relationship. I’m going through this storm, and I’m out of this two and a half year storm. Obviously, sometimes the pain comes in very big waves. But, I am accepting of things and working more on myself to do anything I can do to actually please myself. Sometimes, it’s not doing anything. Sometimes, most of the time, it is creating, hanging out with good people, doing a lot of personal practices, like meditation, and yoga.
Spirituality is very important to you, isn’t it?
It is. Massively. As important as the air we intake. It is definitely important in my life. At a certain point, after I moved to New York, I had everything I wanted. I had a motorbike; I had a house; I had the girlfriend; I had the job. I was like, “I’m doing everything I want.” But. I still was very sad, you know? Sometimes I would be very sad.
I was working as art direction at this production company. And I was working a decent amount of hours, not crazy, because the owner would allow me to come in after my yoga and swimming practice in the morning. I would come in at 12, maybe working till 8 pm. I was getting so sad. But, then, I got very into meditation and trying to find my true nature. By listening inside, you can actually understand who you are. Not just by connecting constantly with others. Like with suppression, they are coming to you. Instead, there is just a reaction, there is not an action. It started with yoga — the physical — and then meditation. Then, you can experience this life. What is your internal medicine, when it is not planned?
It actually freed me. Because, then I go, “Okay, Gianluca, that is New York, that is what you like. So, leave a component, create something that allows you to leave the nice New York. And, just work for it. You now have the skill.” By living in New York, the great thing is that, yes, I am living in value. City doesn’t really matter. I had learned a work ethic, which I think is the best. I learned in New York. So, then even when I’m dealing with high clients, I have clients calling me even right now. I’m living in Bali like barefoot, but I still can handle higher production, which is great.
Do your yoga practice and your spirituality inspire your work?
Yes. Very much. So, when I started working more inside, I would start listening because the storm is connected to the heart, right? The heart sends messages to the brain, then you can listen. You can listen to yourself. The brain itself creates the ego, which is not a bad thing. It is just a varied idea of who you are. It is an idea that is recalling what people are saying about you or how you see yourself in the mirror. It depends on your personal emotional state in this specific moment. You can perceive yourself in one way or another. So, once you get rid of all of that, you go through the honesty inside yourself. Then, you actually can hear. I was hearing nature. I was hearing joy. I was hearing peace that is what you have to bring with your work. Make people aware when they are living of the peace that they can find from the place they are living, also upon the peace they can find inside of themselves. So, once you are in peace, you can live happily and stop bothering yourself with so many things that we actually do not need and we actually self-create.
How do you translate that into images? Does that just happen organically?
I already have a series of four shows ready because I’m keeping working inside myself, and this work inside myself allows me to develop certain types of images. But then, when I’m out in everyday life, I don’t go out with a mission. I just go out and see, and clean, and try to pay attention, and see where my attention falls. Sometimes, it is capturing people. Sometimes, it is places. Sometimes, interaction is the key. Sometimes, it is just vast in open spaces. Sometimes, it is very micro, small details. And then, when I look back, I start connecting the dots. “Okay, this work with this. This work with this. And, this work with this”
Right now, I am doing a series of images with a friend of mine from LA wants me to do a book for them, and I think it’s about time. I want to do a work about the sacredness of the water. Because here, the water in Bali is considered to be very clean. Also, there is a massive surf community. So, also, they live the water in a different way. So, I wanted to combine the two elements. The surf life connected with the water and more the spiritual life, still connected with the water, with this place in the middle.
If you are doing so much of this work, sort of holistically, do you draw any inspiration from other photographers or videographers or filmmakers?
When I started looking at photography, I was getting books constantly. I was just looking, magazine, magazine, magazine, fashion magazines of photos. And then I see it, I’m always falling for the same thing, right? At a certain point, I stopped because I was having images that I saw that I liked and I was just trying to recreate them instead of creating my own. So, I completely stopped.
I looked around and I found myself, to be honest, always in the right direction, If you stick to your own honesty, and yes, you understand that your vision that is contemporary, then you do need to look around. Because, then, I think that I am polluting myself. Because the mind is absorbing things outside and then they speak to you.
I’d rather the feeling happens naturally. So, maybe I can hold a book in my hands. Or maybe, I hear somebody talking about something at the park, and maybe I go look at it. But, it is a very natural process instead of me hunting for inspiration.
I don’t want to sound cocky, but three days ago, I was swimming along with a family of massive manta rays. I do things that are so inspiring to me that I want to do. So, I don’t want to look for much around because then I am just risking to become someone else. It happens.
Sometimes you go, “Oh, this picture is like this artist or this director.” Or, you are shooting in that way. I’m like, “I’m great,” because it means we are thinking and vibrating in a similar way. We’re creating similar images, but it is not because I follow a trend. Because when the trend would be gone, then you need to look for another trend.
It is better to create your own and stick with it.
Speaking of creative things, can you tell me a little bit about your venture Blue Dream Escape?
Blue Dream Escape is born to separate my personal artistic work from commercial work. Obviously, when I started doing shows people bought photos, prints for two or three grand, and they are like, “I don’t want them to have my name related also to commercial work.” It doesn’t work like that. There is no artist that does commercial in part and sometimes. So, Blue Dream Escape is a collaborative. It is a nomadic production company, but I also outsource writers, I outsource music, I outsource things that I cannot do. Visual I do everything. Regarding wording, text or music, I outsource.
Blue Dream Escape became my commercial outlet. While I’m still working on my personal website, my Instagram is more my personal. In fact, Blue Dream Escape Instagram is not even following because it is too much work. It takes so much already out of me doing my Instagram.
And, it’s not because it takes long time, but I don’t want to become fast food. You know, fast food pictures. It needs to have the same purpose, which is peace, joy and relaxing. Also, I don’t want to create images that people just look at it and click it. When I want to open my page, people go through and slide down, and say, “Okay, this is something.” And then you think whatever it is, but it’s definitely more personal than just pushing that pictures every day and blah blah blah. It’s too much.
That makes sense. I can understand completely why you’d want to separate them. What do you have coming up in the future?
Okay, coming up in the future, I have many clients here that I am shooting, which is strictly commercial.
But, I’m working on the book about images with my friend, she is a screenwriter and copywriter. So, we are actually looking to pair some of her portraits to images. Which is nothing new, but it is always new when you are doing your own.
I’m going to shoot a documentary here in Bali about nightlife guide. A very famous nightlife man from New York called Mark Baker now in Bali after living in New York. I think he lived in New York for twenty years. He was Mark Baker from the Lords of Dogtown. So, he was skating with Tony Alva, all those professional skaters. Then he went to nightlife. He nailed it for a long time. Then, I moved back here in Bali, and they want to talk about filming.
I have a movie that I’m working with a screenwriter on called Mantra. It is a story about nine people getting into yoga who are training for Kundalini and how they show how they are changing throughout the practice. They all struggle with personal issues. It is kind of funny actually. There is a sentence that I love. There is this guy saying this mantra constantly. Saying “Sat Nam, Sat Nam.” Which means, I am the truth. And then this guy on the subway would pass by and say, “Sat the fuck Nam.” You know, it is very New Yorkish. Very dry. So, you get the spirituality in a funny good way. See how you can actually develop and change by doing work with yourself. And there is no limit time on that. It is always a perfect time.
You have a lot going on. Are you just in Bali until you finish your jobs there?
After four years of surfing from one country to another one, I just need a little base. I think this can be a good base. There is a lot of work coming in this way, and I can use this as a base and just moving around. You know, I do projects wherever. If it is for a specific project, like a movie or documentary, I will fly wherever there is a need and we have interest. If it is for a client, I’ll shoot it anywhere I want. I am getting more swimwear, lingerie, luxury stuff, so Bali is perfect. For the rest, I need to live somewhere where I can do my passion, which is free diving. So, being in the water a lot. Which is mountains, there is mountains. Which is surfing. Which is yoga. And good food. Here you can have very good food for decent amount.
Sounds like you have it all figured out.
Yes, so far. But then the next storm comes, and you need to be ready. So, I’m training every day. For all of us, life is problem solving situation. It is just how much does situation impact our body and impact our mind.
That is why the last two years I haven’t practiced much yoga. Because I came out of this relationship that I associated with yoga because I was doing too much yoga. She was like, “That is too much for me. I see you just living on the beach.” She wanted to live in Paris, which was actually perfect for her. Perfect for me not to live in the States. The attachment got in the way. We suffered for a while, because the situation was very unclear.
But that was always getting me ready for the bigger storm, which was my Mom getting sick. I was back in Italy, staying close to the family and trying to deal with our personal issues and the pain of seeing her dying. But knowing at the same time that it is just something sooner or later you have to face and connecting to her in a higher realm. I just paid attention and looked inside. I can see and feel her at any time. I came out with a very new appreciation of life and way more strength, but at the same time, way more easiness.
Take life very easy, not too complicated. Things are very simple.
