Meet Laredo Montoneri | Photographer and videographer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Laredo Montoneri and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Laredo, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally?
I can say that switching from a corporate career to a creative one has saved my life from “normal boringness” to hopeful and fulfilling. I was marketing manager in Italy before deciding to move to the US to become a fulltime photographer. The choice was for both reasons, I was fed up of a corporate job and fed up of living in Italy. I wanted to have a creative career in photography specific and be able to feel more free from a 9 to 5ish job wich actually was never done at 5 but way later.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
So now I am a fulltime Fashion and portraits photographer, I also do e-commerce product and developing my video style. I am also a Youtube where I share my tips and tricks about photography, what I learned and behind the scene adventure with my followers. In everything I do I always search for authenticity, minimalism, sensuality and passion. So all my real photos tend to be not retouched, expression of a genuine moment, that exactly moment that happened betweeen the photographer and the subject.
Getting my style wasn’t easy at all and I still consider myself in the process of developing as a photographer, artist and person. At the begin I even wanted to be kind of photojournalist or focusing on storytelling, where the photographer just grab photos of something that is happening anyway without his intervention, while now I am more into creating a story or a photos, like getting that moment I mentioned but with some sort of inspirational direction given by me.

The best advice I give is to keep trying and testing and doing. Action is the only way to keep moving in some sort of direction and from here you can understand better what suits you. You can develop your style or even knowing if that is something you want to do or not. That doesn’t mean getting as much busy as possible, like this society tend to ask us, because it could be detrimental for your artistic mindset and for your internal voice.
So the way I developed myself to where I am has always being moving and taking inspirational action towards some sort of direction, and then adjust along the path.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I live in New York city, and I think here options to have fun and the areas to visit are really endless. I would show them downtown manhattan, like west Village (one of my favorite place). I would bring them in a bike ride along the river from upper manhattan down to financial district and up again to brooklyn bridge, and maybe across the bridge to Dumbo area in Brooklyn
I would show the new NYC building and architectural venue, like The Edge, One Vanderbilt, the highline, a ferry to Staten Island.
I would spend at least two full days to just walk the city and taking photos, following the best spot for the light.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I don’t think I have a specific person or mentor to give most of the credits. For sure I met so many people in this path that in some way gave me a little or a bigger something for me to use and to stick in my Mental board. In moment of big switch like this you need to have some solid support that you wanna grab on to and one of these was books, reading tons of self-help and inspirational books as a way to have healthy conversations with supporting friends. But also as a way to switch my way of thinking and seeing my new reality.

Well for sure I want to mention the support of my parents for never putting their doubts or concern on these big change I wanted to do, expecially considering I decided to do it right after the big 2008 Economy fall. So giving up a secure job for something totally new can be really concerning. I think in those moment an important things is not to get hit or absorb other people worrying or concerns, as the baby is still small and need to be protected by you.

Website: Laredomontoneri.com

Instagram: Laredo_photographer

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laredomontoneriphotographer/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/laredomontoneriphotographer

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/laredomontoneri

Image Credits
My headshot taken by Federica Dall’Orso