Nearly thirty years with Pasquale Abbattista
No photographer has shaped me first, and by extension my collaborators after me, more than him. We met in 1998, when I was a scanner operator at Pixelway, in via Forcella in Milan. He was already an established photographer with a long career; I was just a young guy stepping into the profession. Photographer with a capital P, gifted with a massive visual culture and technical skills that, in my experience, are unmatched. I’m talking about Pasquale Abbattista, who I’ve had the luck to know and work with for nearly 30 years now.
Pasquale was my first real client, the person who first trusted me when I opened Digital Area back in September 2006. Together we delivered exceptional work around the world, with planet-level celebrities and incredible talents.
I’ve always treasured everything he taught me and applied it successfully with every other client. What he’d tell me always turned out to hold up in any situation, whether on this side of the pond in New York, or in Milan, or anywhere.
I owe Pasquale a lot, even though he probably doesn’t know how much. This short article is also a tribute to the professional and, above all, the extraordinary person he is. There are countless projects we retouched for him, editorial and campaign work, for the most recognized and prestigious brands. Too many to list. Much easier to visit his website: https://www.pasqualeabbattista.com
Meeting Francesco Vezzoli
Scrolling through an endless list of international publications and some of the world’s most famous brands, a few collaborations deserve a particular emphasis: those with the artist Francesco Vezzoli and his right hand Luca Corbetta. I have the honor of calling this great voice of modern art by his first name, thanks to Pasquale who wanted to bring me along countless times during his photographic direction of Francesco’s art projects.
I’ve always found it incredible how easily Francesco managed to express what he wanted while creating his work; listening to him and deeply understanding his thoughts was always a mystical experience, a higher level of thinking that didn’t even pass through my ears and landed straight in my brain.
Our photographic adventures took us to shoot incredible people like Nicki Minaj (with Edward Enninful as stylist), Eva Mendes, Karen Elson (with make-up by Pat McGrath) and, last but not least, Her Highness Princess Caroline of Monaco. There’s no shortage of stories from these shoots: I’ll pick just two to tell, and unfortunately I’ll have to leave many others out.
Nicki Minaj in New York
At the time Digital Area wasn’t open in New York yet, when Pasquale calls me and says: “Andrea, we’re going to New York to shoot Nicki Minaj for the cover of W.” Bolt from the blue. Who would have expected to go back to the city of my dreams, and for work no less? I’d already been to New York ten years earlier, opening Pixelway’s New York studio. I flew back on September 10, 2001, after spending the last day photographing Manhattan from above. The next day, the Twin Towers were gone. And then Pasquale played his ace: “the project is for Francesco Vezzoli.” As a good Milanese guy inside I thought “oh boyyyy!!!”.
Once I recovered from the shock, I asked Pasquale for a bit of info, and then we worked with the artist on a rough plan of what we’d be doing. It was my first time involved in such a big and prestigious project, in America no less. We went to prep the set the day before, at Industria, the studio of photographer Fabrizio Ferri who I’d already worked with in the past, about 20 minutes from my current office. The set was fantastic and the clothes were INSANE, Chanel couture flown in from Paris with armed escort. We prepared everything: Pasquale handling the lights with his usual mastery, Francesco owning the whole concept, and me in a corner at my station drinking in every word and gesture from those two professionals.
The next day, ready to shoot at 8. The talent was supposed to arrive at 9. I say “supposed to” because she actually showed up mid-afternoon, with a swarm of bodyguards and incredible restrictions from her publicist, like “she doesn’t like to be seen before makeup.” Long story short: watching Pasquale explain the concept surrounded by a thousand restrictions is a scene I’ll never forget. The authority and professionalism of that first job together left a deep mark on me.
Pasquale and Francesco, with my support, managed to pull off in two hours what should have taken twelve, and the result was incredible. The story ended up on the cover of the Art Issue of W Magazine, November 2011, with published credits listing Pasquale as Director of Photography, Edward Enninful as stylist, Stefan Beckman on set design and Luca Corbetta as Artistic Producer.
The Principality of Monaco
Another equally telling anecdote of our tuning over the years is a shoot, again for Francesco, in the Principality of Monaco, where I took part as digital assistant. This time the set was in the dance school Her Highness Princess Caroline of Monaco had attended. Three different sets built the day before with incredible clothes and a stand-in, so we could dial in the lights and use the real talent the next day for as little time as possible.
The day of the shoot we’re on set an hour before call time to double-check everything and make sure it all works to the letter. Then the lights go down, the great hall stays in darkness, and we wait. My daughter had just been born, and I was looking at some of her pictures on my Mac when at some point I hear someone with a French accent behind me say: “She’s beautiful, is that your daughter?”. I turn to my right and it’s her, Her Highness Princess Caroline of Monaco. My legs reacted on their own and I sprang up like a spring, or at least I tried: a hand rested gently but heavy as a rock on my left shoulder, and just like that put me back in my seat. It was one of the many security officers, who politely made me understand that I was supposed to stay seated.
The Princess showed up on set five minutes early, of incredible kindness and with a professionalism I’ve rarely seen. I remember with amused fondness Pasquale asking the Princess, who was playing the Queen of Sweden: “Now I need the expression of a woman used to command.” The Princess replies with a half-amused smile, and milliseconds later delivers an incredible look, which Francesco and Pasquale, with our help, condensed into a stunning work of art, later shown at the “Dalí Dalí featuring Francesco Vezzoli” exhibition at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm (September 2009 – January 2010, curators John Peter Nilsson and Caroline Corbetta).
And then the others
Many other memories are etched in my mind: the works with Eva Mendes shown at “La Nuova Dolce Vita: Social Life and the Imperial Age. From Poppaea to Anita Ekberg” at Fondazione Prada in Venice, which Digital Area retouched (June–October 2011, as part of the 54th Biennale); the series “By Francesco Vezzoli” for GARAGE Magazine N°8 with Karen Elson transformed into a 1930s Jean Harlow-style icon and make-up by Pat McGrath (spring/summer 2015); the series of Vezzoli’s self-portraits “after” the old masters (Raphael, Dalí, Velázquez as Pope Innocent X) for the May-June 2013 issue of L’Uomo Vogue; the special issue of Vanity Fair Italia directed by Vezzoli shot at Grand Hotel et de Milan (September 2020), a project you can also find in Pasquale’s portfolio. And many others in the full bibliography, downloadable here.
Working with Pasquale has been the secret ingredient that let me grow beyond the limits of my experience at the time, and it opened my eyes to what it really means to be a full-spectrum image professional, like he is.
PS. This post was written by a human.
