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10 September 2025

The Grape Harvest at the Cantine d'Araprì in San Severo (FG).

For a long time I had wanted to capture one of the most intense moments of Apulian winemaking, the harvest. This year, with a drought that sped everything up, the rows came alive as early as the first days of August, when many growers started picking to save the grapes from the heat. So I followed the harvest closely at Cantine d'Araprì in San Severo, a client of ours, with a spontaneous photo reportage. I did not expect that behind every basket full of grapes I would find more than farm work. A story of community and identity.

A reportage between tradition and labour

The moment I took out the camera, something happened. My presence became the news of the day. The pickers, immersed in ancient gestures repeated for generations, turned routine into a show. A worker with his face stained with red grape juice, tired but smiling because he knew he was being photographed. The red of the Pinot Nero dominated every shot, the clusters with their violet shades. Fatigue was on their faces, and next to it the pride of people working grapes meant to become something good.

From vineyard to cellar

Cantine d'Araprì, known for their classic method sparkling wines made partly with Pinot Nero, guided me through their land explaining every step. The real star could not be missing. A black and white dog with the eyes of an experienced supervisor, who seemed to say: I have always been here, you are just passing through.

Wine labels, when the detail counts

Seeing our adhesive labels on the d'Araprì bottles made me think. Etichette L'Immagine is not just a supplier. When we make labels for wineries of this quality, every detail weighs. From the design to how it holds up in a cold room, everything has to match the wine it dresses.

The strength of the territory

This reportage caught the gestures that repeat at every harvest. The red of the grapes, the faces dirty with work but satisfied, tradition alongside technique. That is how you build a business in Apulia.

Do you have a company worth telling? The labels we print tell a story before anyone even reads them. If you have a product to dress, write to me.

 The Etichette L'Immagine website

2 september 2025

Bragança, Portugal. 27 and 28 August 2025.

Since 2024, I have been coordinating communications for MASKS, a European project on ritual masks: from the brotherhoods of Holy Week to the carnivals of Europe.

Meeting of the MASKS European project, Unveiling the Arts and Works Behind the Masks. Twelve partners from four countries, among universities, museums and research centres. And me, sitting in that room, thinking: what am I doing here?

It is not the first time. It is a recurring feeling. Finding myself in settings that seemed out of reach, too big for me.

The MASKS project

MASKS brings together twelve European partners, among universities, training centres, museums and private companies, from Italy, Spain, Romania and Portugal. 

The lead organisation for the project is the University of Valladolid, coordinated by Professor Maria Pilar Panero.

Editrice L'Immagine coordinates the communication and promotion of the project. Put that way, it sounded enormous. We said yes anyway, because we believed in it.

The mathematics of courage

Every impossible of yesterday is the normal of today. Looking back at my path, I recognise the moments when I said let us try without having all the answers. Every time I bet on an idea beyond my reach, I was building the road to unthinkable places. It is not magic. It is trust, in yourself and in others. It is saying yes before you know how.

The price of courage

The secret is to start. Even at the risk of taking a few slaps. And the slaps come. Projects that never take off, partnerships cut short, bets lost. But every failure was a lesson that brought me here, to this room in Bragança. There is no growth without risk.

The masks we wear

Working with masks carries its own symbolism. The ancient ones tell of transformations, of the ability to go beyond limits. We wear everyday masks too. Fears, doubts, the not good enough. The challenge is to recognise when that "what am I doing here?" is not realism, but fear in disguise.

If you have asked yourself the same, in a setting that felt too big, it is the sign that you are on the right road. That will always be the finest question to ask.

The MASKS project is co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union.

ps. a sincere thank you to Marica Petruzzella for the logistical support and for handling the relationship with the partners.

Photo by Gaetano Armenio.

Watch the video

September 1980.

Dreaming is serious work (and also quite tiring).

The story of Editrice L'Immagine begins on a train to Bari. September 1980, seven eighteen-year-olds fresh out of school were about to found a company without knowing it. Destination: the League of Cooperatives, where a notary was waiting to sign the founding deed of Cooperativa L'Immagine. But first, because some Apulian traditions are non-negotiable, a mandatory stop at Magda's bakery.

Focaccia first, notarial deeds later

Duty before pleasure. We had reversed the order. I still do not know how you face the birth of a company without oil, tomato and oregano. A solemn hall, a polished table, the air of a historic moment. The notary began reading while the seven partners tried to look professional. It was a failure. One had oil on his cheeks, one tomato on his lips, one crumbs on his shirt. In the silence, Leo whispered one thing. You are wearing socks in Sampdoria colours. The notary looked at us over his glasses. And these would be the founders of a cooperative? Yes, that was us.

27 Via Francesco Nullo, between cockroaches and Beatles

Our first office was thirty square metres in Molfetta, shared with some unconventional flatmates. While Steve Jobs was changing the world from a garage, we learned business with a payphone and a mortadella sandwich at 11. Every morning they waited for us, right on time. Small, dark, fast. Six legs each. Those stubborn cockroaches, our personal Beatles, reminded us every day what resilience means.

Seven million lire and no credibility

Then the big day. Opening the company account. All seven of us showed up at the bank, each with our own million lire in cash. Seven million, a serious sum in 1980. The clerk at Banca Cattolica looked us up and down. Jeans, trainers, satchels and bum bags. His first question was not about our plans. "But where are your parents?" We had seven million on the table and looked like kids playing at being entrepreneurs.

The lesson I had not asked for

It was a free master class. Like when a client, to squeeze a discount, would say "I want to speak to the owner". "But I am the owner" I would answer. Being underestimated taught us one thing. Results speak louder than appearances, and credibility is built project after project.

Forty-five years later

Today, September 2025, Editrice L'Immagine turns 45. When I walk into the office I always think of 27 Via Francesco Nullo. The morning cockroaches, the clerk looking for my father, the clients ready to contest anything to get a discount. I have understood they were all part of the plan, even if none of us knew it back then. The secret? Never taking yourself too seriously.

About me

6 August 2025

Gianni Berengo Gardin has died. With him goes a piece of Italian photography, the real kind, the kind that needs no filters to tell the world.

The news takes me back to 2013, when I pulled off something that seemed impossible. Bringing him to Molfetta for an international photography contest. The one who made the impossible possible was Cosmo Laera, photographer and lecturer at the Brera Academy. A dream that took shape in the Auditorium of the Diocesan Museum, where for two days I sat next to the man many simply call the Master.

Two days beside the giants

258 photo reportages to judge. A jury that seemed to come out of any enthusiast's dream. Besides Berengo Gardin, there were Denis Curti of Il Fotografo, Laura Serani of the European Institute of Photography in Paris, Antonella Gaeta of Apulia Film Commission, Giancarlo Piccirillo of Pugliapromozione, Cosmo Laera and Enzo Quarto of RAI 3 Puglia. I stood there in silence, catching every comment like an anthropologist studying an unknown tribe. Every remark was a treasure.

When it all becomes real

Berengo Gardin had that rare ability to look at a photograph and read its soul. Technique, for him, was a given. He went straight to the heart of the image. "There is truth here" he would say, pointing at some photos of Holy Week in Apulia. And when Berengo Gardin speaks of truth, you just listen. The winner was the procession of the Desolata of Canosa, photographed by Michele Sorrentino. Five thousand euro in prize money and, above all, the seal of a jury I will hardly forget.

The daring dream

That project built an international network. The European Institute of Photography in Paris, the Apulia Region, the Brera Academy and RAI together, to carry Apulian traditions into the world. But the real lesson came from him, from his mere presence. You do not need to be the best to build ambitious projects. You need to be mad enough to try. To bring one of the greats of contemporary photography to your own city.

The legacy of Gianni Berengo Gardin

Now that he is gone, what remains is the memory of those eyes that read reality better than anyone. Thank you, Master. For teaching us that photography is not only technique, it is a way of seeing.

31 July 2025

Between Terra Madre and bales of hay (literally)

29, 30, 31 August 2025 - Sovereto, Terlizzi

When art meets logistics (and you end up loading hay)

Here I am writing about the Sovereto Festival, which this year celebrates its thirteenth edition, from 29 to 31 August in Sovereto.

And no, it is no accident that I started this way: when you handle the communication and the graphics of a cultural event, you soon discover that behind every activity there is always someone who has had to load bales of hay onto a van.

That someone, unfortunately, is me.

The artist, the timing and my patience

The artistic director Giovannangelo de Gennaro is one of those people you hold in real esteem and friendship, and who manages to get on your nerves with disarming ease.

His artistic timing and my communicator timing run on parallel tracks that never meet. He imagines the perfect set design, I count the days left before the campaign launch.

"That is normal when you deal with artists," everyone tells me. Easy to say when you are not the one who, the night before, gets the message: "Ah, we need the van... tomorrow morning we have to go and pick up the bales of hay for the meetings with the authors."

Terra Madre: a theme that speaks to the heart

This year the theme is "Terra Madre", Mother Earth, a concept that weaves the spirituality of the place together with the female figure, starting from the thousand-year history of Sovereto. For centuries the village has kept the symbol of this connection: from a cave, metaphorically the womb of the Great Mother, comes the discovery of a Marian icon linked to the cult of the black madonnas venerated all over southern Italy.

It is a powerful, evocative theme that lends itself very well to social storytelling. Between posters, 6x3 billboards, Facebook and Instagram posts telling the spirituality of the territory, this year the promotion has everything it needs to draw people in.

The behind the scenes you will never see on social media

What we will never post on the festival's official channels is the moment when, inevitably, I end up discussing logistics with Giovannangelo.

He explains with passion the importance of the bales of hay in creating the right atmosphere for the literary meetings, while I think about how to explain to my back that no, I have not suddenly become a farm labourer.

But that is exactly the beauty of working with real artists: they always take you beyond your comfort zone.

The appointment that counts

A festival that brings together culture, spirituality and territory, where every encounter is designed to touch the soul as well as the mind.

And if this year I manage to avoid the hay transport, well, that will already be a small miracle worthy of the Black Madonna of Sovereto.

Follow the Sovereto Festival social channels so you do not miss any update on the programme, the guests and... no, we will not be posting the bales of hay.

P.S. Giovannangelo, if you are reading: this year we hire someone else for the van, all right?

18 July 2025

The first Tikedo Label Group Summer Party 2025: notes from Rimini

Friday 25 July 2025 - Rock Island, Rimini

When labels take off their tie (and fate runs its course)

Let me say it right away: I did not expect to find myself writing the first post of my blog about an aperitif with a sea view, but here we are. Sometimes life takes you where you did not think you would go, and on Friday evening I found myself at the Rock Island in Rimini for what will go down in history as the first "Tikedo Label Group Summer Party 2025".

What an irony of fate: coming back to Rimini after forty-five years, in manager version instead of on a motorbike, with no licence and a thousand mishaps to get there.

Yes, because the first time I arrived in this Romagna town I was a boy looking for adventures, together with Angelo, known as "il fiocina", a friend in misadventure. Destination: the legendary Velvet, the rock club of the time. Result: thrown out by the bouncers after a few hours, and a night spent sleeping in a dinghy on the beach, inside our sleeping bags.

The wake-up call? A fireworks display exploding over our heads while we were surrounded by hundreds of people who had come to watch. The two of us there, dazed and with tousled hair, like two castaways suddenly catapulted into a festival.

The aperitif you do not expect

Forty-five years later, here I am again. But this time for a completely different reason: all the companies of the Tikedo Group brought together for a moment of "socialising and professional and human sharing". Translated from corporate-speak: aperitif, chat and group selfies.

For those who do not know (and there are probably many of you), since January our company Etichette L'Immagine has been part of this family. Yes, us, the ones who have been producing for years those reel adhesive labels you find on your favourite wines, on the Sunday pasta packs and on that extra virgin olive oil you buy convinced you are making the right choice.

The sea, the labels and everything else

The Rock Island turned out to be the perfect location: with that deck facing the sea and the relaxed atmosphere, even work talk felt lighter. Between a prosecco and a group photo, we talked about future projects, about the challenges of the packaging sector, and about how our labels end up on the products we then find on our tables.

When the dance floor calls (but you cannot answer)

And then, at a certain point, the evening changed. Our colleagues literally let loose: dance music at full volume and them throwing themselves into dancing as if there were no tomorrow. A total release after months of labels, shifts and production stress.

Meanwhile, I was standing there, nervous like a parent on their child's first day of school, watching this explosion of joy. The reason?

An annoying pain in my left knee that kept me from joining the dancing. On the other side, my business partner sat apart, impassive as always, and when I say always I mean on every single occasion: weddings, parties, company meetings. Not even an earthquake would get him off that chair.

350 packaging professionals (with a final surprise)

But the evening had one last surprise in store: during the toasts it was announced that another company from Veneto has officially joined the Tikedo Group. We are now eight companies in Italy, a nice extended family that keeps growing.

The evening ended with a cake reading "Tikedo Label Group Party 2025" and the awareness that this group is not just a set of companies, but a team of people who share the same passion for quality.

Spoiler alert: this is only the beginning.

If you work in the food sector and you are wondering who is behind the labels of your favourite products, get in touch right away: you might discover that your next label has a story to tell too.

The Etichette L'Immagine website