Instagram feature with Fine Art Landscape photographer Stefano Orazzini

Capturing the glory of Italy’s rolling hills, Stefano has transformed his home region into works of art. Being an avid cyclist Stefano has been able to visit a wide range of beautiful locations sharing his work with us for over 10 years now.

He’s photographed amazing views all over Italy and has been kind enough to share some of his story from having to borrow his parents’ film camera as a child to becoming an award-winning photographer in his own right.

Read on and learn all about how he got started and how he tackles the “visual chaos” of the modern day.

SH: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you became a specialist in fine art landscape photography?

SO: My journey into photography has been quite a linear one. I have been passionate about taking photos since I was a child, it started during holidays with my parents. I was particularly fascinated by the Dolomites; that is where it all began. I was about ten years old, and at the time, we only used film. My parents were reluctant to let me ‘waste’ shots on landscapes, as the camera was intended for documenting family memories rather than mountains.

As an adult, I began travelling with my wife and would return with high-quality images. Some friends encouraged me to enter photography competitions; I decided to give it a try and immediately started winning several of them. People clearly resonated with my style. This convinced me to turn my passion into a profession. Initially, I collaborated with art galleries, selling black and white fine art prints. However, making a living solely from artistic landscape photography is very challenging (at least here in Italy), so I complemented this by producing landscape and travel imagery for stock agencies, always maintaining a strict focus on quality. I have always prioritised quality over quantity.

Unlike many of my colleagues, I have strived to make a living by actually selling my photographs. This might sound obvious, but today, selling images is perhaps the most difficult professional path for a photographer. The majority of my peers rely on ancillary activities, such as hosting workshops for amateurs, social media content, or selling presets and online courses. I have been a professional landscape photographer for over 20 years now, and I hope to continue for many more, even though I admit the challenge grows steeper every year.

SH: You’ve captured many areas of Italy but mainly focus on the region of Tuscany, what draws you to the region?

SO: The answer is far less romantic than one might imagine: I was born and I live in Tuscany. That said, it is a region that is difficult not to love, as it is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful in Italy. It has everything: the sea, islands, mountains, ancient woodlands, stunning cities of art, characteristic villages, and world-renowned rolling hills such as the Val d’Orcia, the Crete Senesi, and the Maremma.

What I consider a great advantage for a landscape photographer is the ability to manage the weather, the light, and the seasons by living locally. I can reach any Tuscan location within two hours, which allows me to make the most of the best lighting conditions, something that is fundamental to good landscape photography. When I shoot outside my region or abroad, there is always the risk of not finding the right conditions.

SH: We can see that you’ve recently visited Japan, what was the experience like and how does it compare to shooting in Italy?

SO: I have always been deeply fascinated by Oriental art, which follows aesthetic canons very different from our European ones. I was particularly struck by the concepts of “Ma” and “Wabi-Sabi”—the importance of empty space, imperfection, transience, and the marks of time. I took this trip 15 years ago and, alongside my digital gear, I brought an analogue Hasselblad. I cannot describe the effort of trekking across Japan with a camera bag weighing over 20kg!

In the East, I found a harmonious fusion of tradition and modernity, and that is what I tried to convey in my black and white project. What I found truly interesting is how every human intervention in the Japanese landscape—be it a road, a bridge, or a tunnel—always seems to follow a natural aesthetic that respects the environment. In Italy, this is often absent because the modern element is rarely integrated in the same way; even recent interventions usually try to adhere to traditional aesthetic standards to respect our historical heritage.

SH: You’ve visited many Italian towns and villages, what has been your favourite location to shoot over the years?

SO: It is a very difficult choice as Italy is home to so many beautiful towns. Perhaps the Cinque Terre—specifically the villages of Manarola, Vernazza, and Riomaggiore are among my favourite ‘classic’ subjects, where I have perhaps captured some of my best work.

However, if I were to choose with my heart, I am very attached to the images I produce in two UNESCO World Heritage sites: the Langhe in Piedmont and the Prosecco Hills in Veneto. I come from a region famous for its wines—I live just ten minutes from Bolgheri, home of the ‘Super Tuscans’—so vineyard landscapes are perhaps my favourite genre. In the Langhe and the Prosecco Hills, the landscape reaches a disarming beauty, where man’s labour blends perfectly with nature to create breathtaking vistas.

Furthermore, as a keen cyclist who covers over 10,000 km a year, I love exploring these wine regions on my bike with my camera gear. Most of the vineyard images in my portfolio were captured during these explorations. While the final aesthetic of an image is important, the process of obtaining it is fundamental to me. In my case, the physical effort, the unpredictability of the weather, and the difficulty of reaching certain locations add immense personal value to the work.

With the advent of AI, we risk losing this ‘culture of effort’ in favour of an image culture that prizes immediacy and low cost. I hope that in the future there will still be those who appreciate the value of effort and ‘slowness’; otherwise, we landscape photographers risk extinction.

SH: Your work often features minimalism, how important is it to focus on the fine details when it comes to shooting vast open spaces?

SO: I believe that landscape photography is a metaphor for modern life. Today, we are overwhelmed by an ‘overload’ of information, images, ads and notifications. Our days have become a search for the important things to extract from the daily chaos. This is often exactly what happens in landscape photography. Visual chaos can be very difficult to manage: the choice of subjects, the ever-changing light, a sky that can shift in an instant.

Minimalism, therefore, becomes a necessity for me—a way to distance myself from the ephemeral and the superfluous to focus on what is solid, essential, and timeless. To achieve this, I often use long exposure techniques, which allow me to strip away secondary elements (like the movement of waves or clouds), or I attempt to abstract a landscape by playing with simple tonal contrasts and geometric lines. Extracting the essence of things is undoubtedly one of the pillars of my work. As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote: “Perfection is attained, not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away.”

We hope you enjoyed reading Stefano’s story, if you would like to see more of his work you can check out his entire Alamy collection here or you can head to his website.

If you want to find out about more of our landscape photographers make sure to check out our spotlight interview with Denys Bilytskyi here.