Born in 1961 in Basel, I grew up in Italy ,lived in Zürich, Basel and moved to Ticino in 1994.
At heart I am a traveller: for decades my professional life and my holidays have taken me across many countries and continents, and whenever possible my camera has travelled with me. African wildlife is my deepest photographic passion—especially in Tanzania—yet my images are the result of a much broader journey through cultures, landscapes, and encounters around the world.
I am an amateur photographer with the dream of dedicating myself entirely to photography once I retire. My fascination began at the age of ten, and at fourteen I bought my first SLR camera with my own savings. At twenty I transformed my mother’s laundry room into a darkroom to develop black-and-white prints—an experiment that tested both my creativity and her patience.
After studying at ETH Zürich, where I earned a Ph.D. in chemistry, my career led me to travel extensively for business. These trips, together with many family holidays, shaped my visual curiosity: cities, deserts, northern skies, and tropical coasts were all explored through the lens I always carried with me. In 1993 my wife and I discovered the parks of Africa, a turning point that created a lifelong bond and drew me back again and again.
In 2004 I embraced digital photography with my first Nikon and have remained loyal to the brand, now using a mirrorless system. Some journeys were dedicated entirely to photography—wildlife in Zimbabwe, cultural and street scenes in Japan, and the Northern Lights in Norway—while many others were family travels where photography accompanied the rhythm of everyday discovery.
For black-and-white work, my main inspiration is Nick Brandt. In 2024 and 2025 I exhibited a series of sepia-toned elephant photographs in Switzerland, with proceeds supporting a school in Kenya (atkye.africa-photography.ch).
