Hi,
I’m Mattia.
I’m a photographer specialising in dog photography: creative portraiture and dogs in motion, including canine sports such as disc dog and agility. I’m based in Bologna, in northern Italy. I started in 2015, bringing with me a background as a graphic and visual communication technician.
I photograph dogs and pets, working with natural light or with studio flash. I look for locations with character ( sometimes odd ones ) and build sets to measure, for private clients, companies, breeders and canine sports clubs.
Photograph: Alessandro Musicorio ©
Ten years of dog photography
Is there really such a thing as a dog photographer? There is. In Italian the proper term is fotografo cinofilo, which is why the international dog photographer, or pet photographer, sounds so much better. It is not a matter of elegance: behind the words there is a real specialisation, made of knowledge of animal behaviour, photographic technique and a relationship of trust with a four-legged subject.
Published work
My photographs have been published by Italian and international magazines devoted to the canine world, among them Quattro Zampe e Pet Family in Italy, Partner Hund in Germany and Dogs Today in the United Kingdom. I have also shot the cover of two books on canine education: “Educazione Cinofila” by Roberto Marchesini (Apeiron Edizioni) and “La Bibbia del Labrador” by Angelica Vicedomini and Mirco Nicolazzo.
Press
Articles, features and interviews published by Italian and international titles. Mattia Gorno’s dog photography as told by the press, specialist and otherwise.
Awards
Over the years I have entered several international competitions in dog photography and pet photography. The awards I have received are a confirmation of the road taken, and a valuable measure against the international scene.
Dog photography courses
I have been teaching dog photography and post-production since 2020. I work with local organisations and I teach at Foto Image Bologna, the photography school founded by Fulvio Bugani. The Dog Photography Creative Lab is the beating heart of everything I teach: a course built not only to go deeper into pet and dog photography, but to wake up the creative potential that sits in each of us, something we need more than ever. Courses are taught in Italian.
Technical partners
Over the years I have had remarkable opportunities and the luck to work alongside people of the highest professional and personal standing. I rely on them, and they rely on me, to run dog photography events and shoots with full respect for the safety of the dogs and for the environment.
What everyone would like to say…
I grew up in a completely different artistic world, born in 1977, where reinventing yourself and adapting were a spur to find new ways of communicating and new ways of expressing yourself.
Everything is changing, and everyone is adapting to the change. The very word adaptation implies a process that goes against nature, set off by an instinct for survival rather than by a personal urge.
Personal passions and artistic experience are an enormous inheritance, to be protected, trained and tended day by day.
Let us not be eaten alive by productivity and by the logic of scaling art. Every artistic gesture of ours grows from roots made of sacrifices, attempts, limits and a long ripening over time.
All we need is time.
The short version, for those in a hurry
I am not a guru: if I do not know something, I go and study it (or else I let it go). I think social platforms should pay us for all the work we do on them. I do not like absolute statements, I love doubt, I feel lucky. I like being right (who doesn’t?), I am touchy, and I am a Libra…
And if you have a biscuit in your pocket, then as far as I am concerned (and as far as the dogs on set are concerned) you are a deity.