THE ORIGINS, DIGITAL AREA MILANO

early days

And here we are in 2006, the year of the foundation of Digital Area Milano. After 8 years as a technical director in an established company and having had the fortune to work on images by the best and most famous fashion photographers such as Patrick de Marchellier, Fabrizio Ferri, Marco Glaviano, Helmut Newton, Michelangelo di Battista, and too many others to name, I found myself in completely uncharted territory: being an entrepreneur as well as a retoucher. I immediately discovered that founding and managing a company, especially in Italy, is a tough business. Countless administrative obstacles, impossible relationships with banks, inextricable bureaucracy… and a capital hemorrhage just to begin to hope to have a business of your own. Capital that, needless to say, I did not have at my disposal. But the desire for success was stronger than the fear of losing everything, so I sold my car, put a mortgage on the house, and took out a loan with an incredibly high interest rate for those times from a very famous financial company, which was later investigated for usury. Thanks to my wife, who always understood more about management and business than I did, I found a wonderful space in the heart of Milan’s fashion district, where Digital Area immediately flourished, attracting many new clients and even some who already knew me… until 2008.

The Global Crisis of 2008

The economic crisis originating in the United States struck with fury on everyone, including Digital Area. My preference for small batches of work and very high quality though, combined with meticulous spending planning, saved me from closure and allowed me not to lay off any of my collaborators. But everything came at a price, including not paying myself for about 6 months and relying on my wife’s only salary. Then, gradually, everything started again as before, but leaving about 65% of the companies that had invested substantial capital and had very large and heavy structures, with many employees, on the ground. The market changed radically, and the price per image plummeted by as much as 50%, never to fully recover.

Giampaolo Sgura

In 2011, I met an extraordinary person named Giampaolo Sgura, an emerging photographer who became my best client ever. Together with him, Digital Area has published worldwide, for all major brands and publications, with an endless list of Italian and especially international celebrities. The artistic partnership bore great fruit, I believe for both of us, and it continues today with ever new projects, challenges to face, and conquer!

what was happening then?

Over the years, we expanded by adding staff until the end of 2012, the year when my desire to broaden my horizons and step out of my comfort zone took over again. Together with my wife, we considered and then dismissed several cities like Paris (difficult integration), London (little fashion business)… until we arrived at the farthest and most difficult dream of them all, New York. And guess what we chose…

…exactly, New York itself, where in 2013 we founded Digital Area LLC.