Beyond the Surface: Massimo Saretta’s Travel Photography

In a world chasing aesthetic perfection, Massimo Saretta chooses authenticity. The photographer from Padua has traveled across countries and cultures — from India to Mexico, from Japan to Morocco — with a gaze that doesn’t just capture places, but emotions and imperfections that tell the story of life. For him, photography is not about collecting images, but about listening to the world and preserving what risks disappearing. In this interview, he takes us inside his way of understanding photography — not as technique, but as an experience of connection, memory, and revelation.

When you set off on a journey with your camera, what are you really trying to capture: the place, the people, or a feeling?
I look for something that vibrates beneath the surface of things: a sensation, a breath, a fragment of truth. Every journey is an opportunity to let myself be touched by this mystery that inhabits the world. I’m not interested in the “beautiful image,” but in the photograph that contains within itself a fragment of life, spirit, imperfection. When I manage to translate that spark — fragile, luminous — into an image, I feel as if I’ve brushed against what I consider divine.

What is the relationship between photography and memory for you? How important is it to tell not only what you see, but also what you feel?
For me, photography and memory are inseparable. Both are born from the desire to hold on to what slips away, to safeguard an emotion before it disappears.The beauty I observe is never just aesthetic: for me, it’s a passage, a revelation, a small daily miracle.Ultimately, photographing means trying to remember with the eyes and the heart what, for an instant, made something greater resonate within me.

When you set off on a journey with your camera, what are you really trying to capture: the place, the people, or a feeling?
I look for something that vibrates beneath the surface of things: a sensation, a breath, a fragment of truth. Every journey is an opportunity to let myself be touched by this mystery that inhabits the world. I’m not interested in the “beautiful image,” but in the photograph that contains within itself a fragment of life, spirit, imperfection. When I manage to translate that spark — fragile, luminous — into an image, I feel as if I’ve brushed against what I consider divine.

What is the relationship between photography and memory for you? How important is it to tell not only what you see, but also what you feel?
For me, photography and memory are inseparable. Both are born from the desire to hold on to what slips away, to safeguard an emotion before it disappears.The beauty I observe is never just aesthetic: for me, it’s a passage, a revelation, a small daily miracle.Ultimately, photographing means trying to remember with the eyes and the heart what, for an instant, made something greater resonate within me.

How do you experience travel as a cultural experience? How does this dimension influence your way of photographing?
For me, travel is first and foremost an act of listening. It’s stepping gently into a world that doesn’t belong to me, learning its rhythm, its language, its silences. Every culture I encounter asks me to slow down, to look without judgment, to let myself be crossed by the stories it carries.This dimension profoundly changes my way of photographing: when I travel, I don’t try to “bring home” photographs, but to let places and people transform me.

Is there a place that taught you something unexpected about the power of images?
Among my first reportages, I remember a small village, far from everything, where people weren’t used to being photographed. There I understood that photography is an act of mutual trust, fragile and profound.From that place I brought back few images, but a great lesson: the power of a photograph doesn’t lie in what it captures, but in what it manages to return — respect, truth, presence.

When you shoot, do you think more about the beauty of the moment or the story the image will tell?
I’m interested in the beauty that arises from a fragile balance between truth and imperfection. There are moments when everything aligns — the light, a gesture, a breath — and in that instant I feel the story is already there, ready to reveal itself.I never separate beauty from narrative: the first attracts the gaze, the second holds it. When I shoot, I just try to be present, to listen to what’s happening. The rest comes later, in silence, when the image begins to speak on its own.

If you had to describe the meaning of travel with a single photograph, what would the subject be and why?
For me, travel is a continuous beginning, an inner place where curiosity overcomes fear and where every glance opens new possibilities. It’s the moment when you accept not having all the answers, but choose to set out anyway.Perhaps I would choose a photograph taken at dawn, when the light is still uncertain and the world seems suspended between what has been and what is about to begin. In the foreground, a face turned toward the horizon — not posed, but absorbed, as if searching for something it does not yet know.

When you shoot, do you think more about the beauty of the moment or the story the image will tell?
I’m interested in the beauty that arises from a fragile balance between truth and imperfection. There are moments when everything aligns — the light, a gesture, a breath — and in that instant I feel the story is already there, ready to reveal itself.I never separate beauty from narrative: the first attracts the gaze, the second holds it. When I shoot, I just try to be present, to listen to what’s happening. The rest comes later, in silence, when the image begins to speak on its own.

If you had to describe the meaning of travel with a single photograph, what would the subject be and why?
For me, travel is a continuous beginning, an inner place where curiosity overcomes fear and where every glance opens new possibilities. It’s the moment when you accept not having all the answers, but choose to set out anyway.Perhaps I would choose a photograph taken at dawn, when the light is still uncertain and the world seems suspended between what has been and what is about to begin. In the foreground, a face turned toward the horizon — not posed, but absorbed, as if searching for something it does not yet know.