Augury

In my ongoing series Augury, I use photography as divination—reshaping memory through queer intimacy and lived experience. By layering moments, people, and places, I construct alternative truths that replace the past and imagine an auspicious future.

Augury is the ancient spiritual practice of divination through observing the behavior of birds. It is the root of the word “auspicious” in English and means “good luck” or “congratulations” in Italian. In this ongoing series, I use photography to alter the effect of memory and discover omens of my future. Through my practice, I untangle my tumultuous experience as a queer man and project stability into what lies ahead. Like an augur receiving messages from birds, I believe my photographs are an auspice, giving me unabridged communication with my own subconscious. 

While truth and photography are subjective, I view them objectively. A photograph appears real and my gut reaction is to believe that truth. I use this trick to construct alternative memories in place of existing ones. Like an imposed deja-vu, I attempt re-remembering the past by unraveling the decisive moment. The combination of parts, which photography generally tries to reduce into a single photograph, I leave uncombined and unreduced. Like the transience of cruising glances, each moment is layered and strung together to reveal a new reality outside the possibility of a photographic memory. This version of the truth, sealed in photography’s  objectivity, recognizable yet foreign, replaces the former. 

My photographs are about intimacy, memory, and the quiet emotional forces that shape how we connect to one another. I am drawn to moments that feel tender, unresolved, or fleeting—small gestures, closeness, distance, and the tension that exists in everyday life. 

Rather than documenting things as they “happened,” I build a personal language through photography—something closer to a visual diary or a fragmented archive of experience. I am interested in the mechanics of memory: nonlinear, selective, and charged with feeling. Images become stand-ins for what is remembered, what is imagined, and what cannot be spoken directly.

Queerness is central to my work—not as a theme to illustrate, but as a lived perspective that informs how I see intimacy, identity, and belonging. I photograph people, animals and places with care, letting portraits and environments bind the emotional weight together. Shooting in New York, California and Bologna, Italy, I am drawn to locations that feel like home. These are the places I grew up; these places tell my story. Landscapes, interiors, and ordinary spaces are not simply backgrounds—they are active parts of the story, shaping the mood and message of each image.

A birds-eye view turns the world into pin heads and shadows. In my Augury series I am like a cuckoo bird who sneaks into another bird’s nest and replaces unattended eggs with her own; I seek to replace memories with my reimagined alternatives, asserting my place in a nest that will be nursed and cherished by another. It is only a trick if you do not believe it. I find great comfort and acceptance in the story I read—the story I wrote—in my photographs.