We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Federico And Barbara a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Federico and Barbara, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

Fede: My career has been determined by fate and Life itself. I am the third generation of wedding photographers: my grandfather was a wedding photographer, and my mother was a wedding photographer. Initially, I was not interested in pursuing this career, even though I dealt with the video aspect when I was about twenty years old (but only to earn some money). Then, 13 years ago, my mother fell ill with leukemia in the middle of the wedding season and I had to abandon my studies and current interests to take care of her and to fulfill the emergency commitments and engagements. From that moment, something clicked inside me that made me fall in love with photography, what I could do with it, and what I could tell through it. Meeting Barbara and growing together within this world made me even more connected to all of this.

Barby: I encountered Photography while attending the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. Initially, I considered it a lesser art compared to painting, sculpture, and other artists who had influenced my school education. However, my opinion on photography began to change thanks to a film course I took. I started to become passionate about visual language, communication through images, lights, and colors, and the stories and emotions that could be conveyed. It was a revelation for me, and I realized that I needed to reevaluate my beliefs. In that delicate moment of transition, I met Federico and together we discovered the power of photography.

Both: From our background and from the moment we decided to cross paths, both professionally and personally, we started adding something new to our work year after year. We kept raising the bar, pushing ourselves further, until we reached a point where we’ve been living entirely off this for over ten years. Along the way, we’ve achieved incredible milestones and grown more passionate about what we do every single day.

Federico and Barbara, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

We are professional wedding photographers specializing in destination weddings, and we naturally gravitate toward clients—people—who, like us, have a keen eye for beauty and a deep artistic sensibility. When we connect with these like-minded individuals around the world, it’s like hitting the perfect jackpot. We speak the same language, even if we come from different countries; we “vibrate” on the same frequency, and capturing their stories through our photography becomes a natural and effortless extension of that connection.

We live in Tuscany, originally from Florence—growing up in a place like this, it’s almost impossible to be indifferent to beauty. But at a certain point in both our lives and careers, we felt the need to expand our horizons. So, we pushed our boundaries, seeking out people like us beyond our hometown, enriching ourselves by meeting individuals from different cultures, countries, and traditions, and allowing ourselves to be influenced by the beauty of the world.

For a creative person, this is an essential step: never settling, never becoming stagnant, but continuing to explore. Florence will always be our home, but the world has become our “office.” These days, we travel a lot for work.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Our key principle for years now has been: **”We don’t want to appeal to everyone; we want to resonate with the few who truly connect with us and our photography.”** We know our photography isn’t for everyone, and that’s perfectly fine. The first step to growing in a focused and meaningful way—without scattering energy and resources—is understanding which market we want to target, what kind of clients we want to work with, and which industry we want to be part of.

It’s similar to creating a character in a video game—you have to design an ideal client, a hypothetical persona that embodies the perfect fit for your work. You list their preferences: what they love to do, what kind of person they are, whether they enjoy traveling, how they dress, what job they have, their lifestyle, and so on. Once this persona is crystal clear in your mind, every aspect of communication becomes effortless. And as a result, growing your client base happens naturally—but it won’t just be any client base. It will be one that aligns with your vision, your initial strategy, and your creative identity.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

We are both photographers, but we discovered photography as adults, so we don’t have deep-rooted photographic influences from an early age. Federico has always been passionate about cinema and draws many references from that world, while Barbara has a strong artistic background, deeply connected to Art History, which serves as a major source of inspiration for her.

That said, we are both incredibly influenced by cinema—it’s fair to say that film is one of the most natural technological evolutions of what we do. We devour movies and TV series to fuel our passion. Cinema, art exhibitions (especially learning about the lives and thoughts of artists and filmmakers), and traveling have all played a key role in shaping and continuously enriching our creative background.

Pinpointing one single thing that has changed our lives is nearly impossible—we like to think of ourselves as a unique blend of many influences, a mix of everything that has inspired us along the way.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://studiofotograficobacci.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/studio_fotografico_bacci/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/studiofotograficobacci
• Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@studiofotograficobacci

Image Credits

©Studio Fotografico Bacci