Unperfect01: Authorial Mentorship, Street Photography, and Visual Culture

A street photography shot by Federico Zaza in Rome's Piazza Navona. A couple embraces, creating a surreal and unique silhouette in front of the obelisk, captured in stark black and white.

Photography isn't about what you add, but what you let go of to allow the essence to breathe.

Black-and-white street photography by Federico Zaza. A moment of urban irony: a man in a dark suit leans awkwardly against a pole right in front of the elegant Chanel storefront.

Authorial Mentorship, Street Photography, Visual Culture.

Welcome to my world: a place where street photography, irony, and the surreal blend with deep emotion.

Unperfect01 was born where photography is most authentic: on the street.
Where you have no control over anything—and that’s exactly why you learn everything.
This is where artistic journeys, visual explorations, and personal projects come together: irony, the surreal, emotion, Rome.

For me, street photography isn’t a “genre.” It’s a method: presence, timing, empathy, contradictions.

It teaches you to look before you shoot, to choose without fuss, to make sense of what’s there. To observe on different levels and perspectives. To marvel at the everyday. To take nothing for granted.

It is the ground where the vision that nourishes everything else is cultivated: portraiture, photojournalism, even commercial work.

These photos speak the language I know best: that of paradox, the unexpected, and emotion.

The Vision Workshop.

I don’t teach how to take pictures; I teach how to see. I offer in-depth explorations for those who want to transform their photography into a language of self-expression, working on negative space, rhythm, and their own artistic voice.

Street Photography

The street is neither solely nor primarily a genre; it is a method. Presence, timing, empathy, contradictions. Outings, projects, and above all, choice: what to capture and what to let go.

Visual Culture

Authors, books, cinema, photography. Not to “cultivate culture,” but to train the eye and understand why one image works (and another doesn’t).

ROUTES | PROJECTS | JOURNAL

Detail of the Oculus at the Pantheon in Rome: a spotlight effect on a single ray of winter sunlight cutting through the darkness. Unretouched, candid shot

PERSONAL PROJECTS: BLACK & 2020

Two fine-art books, both about Rome.*
* *Black*, entirely in black and white, portrays Rome’s monumental side—but also its ironic, sly, at times raunchy, and at other timessupremely elegant side. *
* 2020, captures the unexpected: the year and a half of the pandemic that changed the world, leaving behind a transformation that is at times unbelievable, at times beautiful, and at times unsettling. A human and urban landscape that is likely unrepeatable. The narrative is divided into two chapters: one in black and white, one in color.

Historical photo essay in Rome: Piazza Navona and the Fontana del Moro, completely deserted during the 2020 lockdown, captured in black and white.

Red Zone, nationwide lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Rome. Piazza Navona. 2020.

Street photography in Trastevere (2020): a symbolic contrast between a mother wearing a mask and pushing a stroller and a mural featuring a skull on the penultimate day of the lockdown.

Life and Death. Street Photography in Rome: The Final Days of the National Lockdown Due to the Spread of COVID-19

Rome was deserted on Christmas Day 2020: a lone vintage car parked on the wet cobblestones in a city center emptied by the lockdown.

Out of Time. COVID-19, 2020, Rome.

A symbol of childhood put on hold during the pandemic: an abandoned tricycle in the courtyard of a closed school in Rome during the 2020 lockdown.

Schools closed. Rome, 2020. COVID-19 pandemic

A deserted Rome during the 2020 lockdown: a lone man walks down Via del Corso past the illuminated windows of Zara, the only person on the entire street.

In Your Mind. Rome, 2020. National lockdown due to COVID-19. Street Photography.

Striking nighttime street photography taken during Rome’s last major snowfall: a solitary figure walks beneath a streetlight in the snow-covered Piazza di Spagna.

Black. Volume 1 – Street Photography. Rome.

Romantic street photography in Rome: a passionate kiss freezes time on the Spanish Steps, in stark contrast to the crowd of tourists in the background.

For information about my writing mentorship programs, availability for private sessions, and visual projects, please contact me.