Tell us something about yourself.

I am a professional freelance photographer and while I try not to limit myself with the very popular notion of specialisation, I tend to focus more on food, architecture, furniture, portrait and corporate photography.

That said, I still appreciate very much, (and might also delve into sometime in the near future), the wonderful genres of artistic nudes, abstract concept, lifestyle, fashion and film photography.

I also like to experiment with graphic design and I have had some commissions in the past but it is not something I am focusing on right now.

I am also currently reading for a BSc Built Environment Studies at the University of Malta.

How often do you travel?

I try to travel at least two or three times a year. If things get too hectic, then once a year is a must.

Do you remember your first time abroad, and can you tell us about it?

I didn’t travel a lot as a child, it is something I have been making up for in my adult life. However, I do remember my parents taking me to Paris when I was 10. It was like setting step in an entire new world. But I was just a child. Today, I can appreciate visiting other countries much better. My first experience abroad on my own was in 2011, while I was reading for my Diploma in Design Foundation studies. It was around the time I started to build a keen interest in chair design and furniture and so I decided to attend Milan Design Week. From then onwards I started wanting to experience more and more of what the rest of the world has to offer.

Best holiday ever and why?

I have travelled to Italy a lot in recent years. I am trying to absorb as many different micro-cultures as I can from this culturally-rich country before I move on to others.

Rome is the best place I have been to by far. It offers a wide variety of things to do and things to see. It is a metropolitan city but also offers many peaceful and quiet green areas to be enjoyed. A city heavily saturated with art, architecture, history and great food. I fell in love with the place.

Discovering things by chance is the best feeling ever

The nightlife is not bad either. At the moment I am considering living there for a few months as part of my studies at another University and potentially find some freelance work.

Which place would you never visit and why?

I can’t say there is a place I would not be intrigued to see and experience. There are countries the lifestyle or culture of which I’m not fond of, but I still would want to see it for myself. It is a shame that there is probably not enough time (at least not for me or most people) to visit every country there is.

And what’s the worst your travel companion could do?

Tell me to relax and enjoy the ‘holiday’. I don’t like holidays. They sound like mini-retirements and the idea of retiring scares me. Also, I don’t like the idea to use too much time on shopping. I enjoy shopping but it needs to have a sharp timeframe, every second spent in a retail shop is another second I could be spending taking a great shot or at a museum.

What do you usually look for when you travel?

Temporary exhibitions, expositions, shows, museums, great food, street life and things that cannot be experienced here at home. I look for cool things to photograph and I also look for good architecture.

I also try to find the weird and bizarre, something that is unusual. After I am done with Europe I hope to be looking at the more exotic countries to visit, where the culture and way of life is entirely different and new to me.

The perfect holiday would be?

One during which I actually manage to do everything I plan, and one which also carries a few surprises along with it.

What the best travel advice you can give?

At the risk of sounding contradictory, leave some room for surprise. Don’t plan every second of the trip, discovering things by chance is the best feeling ever.

And what’s the worst piece of advice you’ve been given?

Telling me about a few exciting exhibitions that cannot be missed without mentioning the fact that there was a four-hour waiting line for every exposition.

The one place you never get tired of visiting?

So far it seems to be Milan. There is always something new going on in that city. I went twice for Milan Design Week and a third time just now, last September where I visited the Milano World Expo. Design week is always amazing, but this was something else. Every country gets to show off a pavilion design and there are exhibitions inside showcasing new technologies and their culture. It was like visiting the world in one go.

There was also Milan Fashion Week going on at the time and, although I did not make time to see any fashion shows (mostly because it was very late to book any), it was interesting being in that atmosphere, where every retail shop was obsessed by looking its best. There were also the celebrities, whom I often fail to recognise, getting constantly harassed in the streets by paparazzi.

Describe one memory that stuck with you from a place.

When I went on the European Architecture Students Assembly in Bulgaria, we visited this huge abandoned Soviet building called Buzludzha, which looked like a massive concrete flying saucer. Everything about it intrigued me; the scale, texture, materials, volumes, structure, spaces and the light passing through its apertures.

Every second spent in a shop is another one I could be spending at a museum

It was on the pinnacle of a mountain and, as we started approaching it by car, the motion of the clouds and the mist that flows around the curved envelope gave out the illusion that it is actually floating above us in thin air.

Once we got there, the changing visual perspective also started to create an illusion as though the building was actually hovering exactly over us. After I let the overwhelming visual effects settle down, my eyes started to adjust to the sad, yet fascinating, reality that the structure no longer holds the glory it once possessed.

What struck me most was seeing a building which once stood so majestically and in such glory, now reduced to a ruin and at the mercy of the natural elements.

If you actually had to live away from Malta, where would you pick?

Somewhere metropolitan and very hectic. Rome, London or Milan in that order. However, I have yet to experience New York.

Anything on your travel bucket list?

Plenty. New York, Chicago, Cuba, Dubai, Indonesia, Thailand, India, Vietnam, Japan, China, Norway, Morocco, Turkey and Austria. I would like to see more that and hopefully I will, but these are the ones I must see before I am satisfied with my travels.

Travel is important to you because?

We are a very small island and most times we get stuck in our ways and in a certain restrictive mentality. Forget books and the internet, travel and first-hand experience is the only true way in which one can find self-development. I cannot be creative if I don’t travel.

What has travel taught you?

That what we know to be true is only relative to our upbringing and our environment.

Other cultures view things differently because of different circumstances and because they went through a different historical path.

It is important to have multiple perspectives and, although most things tend to work within a certain context or social fabric, when it comes to making an important decision in your life, I find it imperative to consider options which are not bound by the norm.