Massimo S. Volonte'


About

My name is Massimo S. Volonte’. I was born in the 60′s in Milan, Italy.
The family moved frequently at that time, following my father who worked in the building constructions. We had different moving, and these ended only in the mid-80′s with the return to our city of origin. In the meantime, I graduated as a surveyor.
The passion for photography was born early, at 8 years old, my uncle gave me a small Agfa Instamatic as a present and, believe it or not, I still remember my first roll!
Books and magazines about photography become one of my favorite reading. However, finished my studies, several reasons lead me to start working as an employee at a company that deals with industrial design in the automotive field. I have worked there for twenty years.
At the same time, however, I never left photography, instead, I was feeling it more and more as part of myself. I attend workshops and began to document places and people that surrounded me. In the mid-90′s I started a small collaboration with the historical agency Publifoto who had an office in Milan. But the traditional photo agencies was a world coming to an end, unfortunatelly, in the years that follow many of these have close their activity. I continued my personal path through the realization of exhibitions and the sale of some printing. I began to do wedding photography.
The big change occurs after the year two thousand. The economic situation of the company where I was working begins to become more and more critical, and after a series of troubled events at the end of 2008, the company declered the closing of the Milan office. I decide to make a living from photography.
The world of photography, like other sectors, has been hit hard by the general crisis that we are still facing today. The idea is, however, to change my way of life, to live with less economic resources but doing what I feel truly in me. What I try to do is to create stories telling what’s going on around me, especially right here, next to me. I have several personal projects in development. I’m working as a wedding photographer, portrait photographer and as a photographer of gigs. A selection of my images are available at the London (UK) agency Millennium Images. I’ve recently started to work with an important italian fashion company. I do book for actors and models. I realize images for music Cds, posters and so on.
I use both digital and analog cameras, 135mm or medium format.
Based in Milan, Italy, I’m also available for assignment everywhere, upon request.

Main exhibitions:
1994 – Milan “The State of Things”
1997 – Milan “Images on the road”
2011 – Milan “Kokoro” (fundraiser collective exhibition for Japan)
2012 – Milan “One year blogging”
2013 – Milan “Carnem” (collective exhibition project, cured by Prospekt agency)
2013 – Milan “Life and opinions of a clown”