Look at it moving in its natural shrine. Shake it lightly, look at it again, taste it, and a captivating red with a deep aroma asking you not to stop will tint your passion, and in a moment, you will lose yourself and let go. It is the Italian red, strong and sweet, in love with your palate and loves giving you the idea that it is no longer there. Let’s go home and don’t worry, Aptitude will drive you there.
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Femininity expands, assumes elongated agile, and athletic forms, smooth enough to shine, feather light.The déco woman comes from long back. She has wild styles from old Africa, and expands her beauty evoking Aztec art and Egyptian depiction. She blends with nature, with flowing water, and the foliage.They seem to issue forth from the scenic imagination and the almost unreal costumes made by Léon Bakst for Diaghilev’s Russian ballets. They are crystalline forms born from sunrays; the arms and the long legs seem like pinnacles or decorations on same style palaces. Aptitude has chosen nature to describe them; nature with its illogical confusion that has the logic of being, the Beauty of the body, a lock of hair, bare breasts, eyes looking up into the sky.Déco is a long series of notes that seem to accompany the models of Aptitude to the tune of jazz.Suddenly you discover that your muse is a simple figure, assumes life all on her own and evolves naturally like in photosynthesis, assuming the figure of a flower or the long leaves of a wild plant.The curves become vast, the arms and legs stretch out, seeking life. Paris, New York, Rome, Los Angeles, she is a citizen of the world, she immerging with her style almost melting in, hiding herself and disappearing in the bigger picture. But Aptitude is there, and I’m here to capture the moment, the instant that leads my woman to become Jazz…Written by Maurizio Catalani
We are made of water, it is inside us and it is right to be with it. Moving inside our body lets us live our time. So lets dive in, and play with a part of ourselves, let it embrace you, touch you rock you gently; it is no ordinary water. For that water we flew in the sky immersed with them in the Maldives azure.
Think you’ll find them again. They’re timeless. Do you remember them? And do you remember her going down that long staircase as if her hips moving could displace the white marble steps under her feet? They are that kind of beauty that is ageless and only a picture can freeze, a postcard full of memories that seems mailed tomorrow.It isn’t easy to grasp her today thnking that you will be seing it again in thirty or fifty years. You only need to find the right one, the right ones, the ones who have the strength to stop the days and make one endless. They’re the faces of nostalgia also because beauty, you know… will it mother forever. Photography with its light writes them down in time, they seem born already dusted in an old attic.I looked for them in the streets of New York, L.A., Miami. Aptitude devours miles and miles trying to live with you the sweet taste of feminine beauty; finding it at the end it gives you its endless dreams coming from a thousand ageless faces.Their faces are made up like paintings, lips telling yesterday desires that seem born today, hair outlined by a colorless pencil, eyes sought forever and ever.Is this only nostalgia? Maybe it’s also desire. Don’t ponder, it is!Written by Maurizio Catalani
It has been celebrated in many movie or image during the Italian boom years. The B24, called Aurelia, was depicted as a Caravaggio by Dino Risi in the movie “Il Sorpasso”, an extraordinary movie that crisscrossed Italy. Vittorio Gassman and Jean Louis Trintignant got off the mythical Aurelia a long time ago and we climb on board, on the Flaminia with Raffaella Di Caprio, a blond angel, the only one who had permission to tell us: “come on, handsome, get in. Let’s go for a ride.” Would you say no? Raffaella, another Italian dream ready to turn into an absolute star, she interprets desire. Wind in her hair, the blond drives on, you look at her thinking she is yours now… but it is not so. She starts her crazy race, she does not divide, there is no room for two and Aptitude is with her already… with you obviously.
IS THERE ANYTHING MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN SIMPLICITY? BEAUTY IS LIKE A BREEZE, ONCE IT TOUCHES YOU IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO FORGET IT. In the Country of food, a marriage is forever, sitting around a table is a passport to taste-land, to the very first experience of happiness. What can you do sitting around a table for five or more hours besides eating? Glances are exchanged over red wine, over fake and distracting words…
Pulcinella, Harlequin, Columbina, Pantaloon, Gianduja, Doctor Balanzone, Rugantino, Brighella, Meneghino, Stenterello come on, there is plenty of room in Italy for Carnival. Aptitude also loves to parade in a mask. What where you expecting? A pure and chaste Columbina? A distracted and shy Harlequin? Pulcinella dancing on the streets of old and tired Naples? Nope! Carnival is fat, full of glances and misunderstandings where everyone is on the lookout for the damsel in costume ready to get lost in the crowd. Opportunity reveals our true nature. Here we celebrate Carnival and its most hidden pleasures, trying to hold on tight to anything we can grasp. And so, take off the mask, tomorrow is another day, full with her. Just like Aptitude, full of itself.
Soon to be bride. Aptitude guys, look but forget about her, for also the girls will have a hard time forgetting the groom. Gabriel Garko is marring her, yet he is not the only man whose gaze turned upon Adua lately. She received a call from Paolo ‘Mr. Oscar’ Sorrentino. She will be a young Veronica Lario in the movie “Them” that will hit the theatres next year. Is it clear now why Berlusconi lost his head? Adua never loses her head though, that is the effect she has on everyone else. She is one of the new stars of Italian cinema, a wonderful woman with a child-like gaze, you can give her a ride in a Bentley or a shopping cart, she will always be herself, you cannot avoid staring at her thinking you are daydreaming. Aptitude is the sideline of a dream, the dream you wish you could live, the transgression of a gaze, the provocation of an idea. Leaf through if you dare.
Don’t stop her, she likes to look beyond, to run and discover what other people are doing, where they live, what they believe, running and running with no end. Don’t stop her, her heart beats fast and she wants to know if there is room for her, for her little dreams. It is her sun, the sun of Naples that she always carries with her. Are you thinking about it beautiful Maria? A travel-loving Italian woman. She will be in Los Angeles, the Italian Miss Universe candidate, and maybe next to her she will have someone more narcissist than herself. Maybe Aptitude?
Micol Ronchi, the ‘made in Italy’ in the world’s most famous ‘made in the USA’. Playboy, a dream-like realm you can leaf through. I am Aptitude, a treasure chest full of desires, and Micol exceeds desires, she’s the reality of Italian beauty, the perfect fruit to be tasted. Cinema, Radio, Fashion, TV, Chiambretti’s muse, she messes up the lens, sighs and fogs it up, lights it up with a smile, and directs it with her gaze. Please, forgive me if I’ve brought you where she is, but I am Aptitude and I love making you suffer.
She was blond, besides being tall. Blond like gold; a natural, blinding blond. A gaze that offers you her eyes as a gift, while you do everything you can to avoid them. Looking at her seems already too much, being looked back is a generous and mistaken act. Blond like her skin, a Venus to admire, you can caress her with your thoughts, almost grasp her, she is a dream you harbor in silence, hoping for the day when she will ask you to caress her. It is my way of catching beauty, to bring it close, distracting you all of a sudden from everything you are doing. It is the way I do things, pretty similar to yours, that is why we are very similar you and I. I choose you, she chooses me, and you choose Aptitude.
“Put some clothes on!” is the first thing a Sicilian girl ears before she goes out. “It’s hot, mom” she answers, and yet ever docile, she covers herself, she knows she has to do it. Her land, her tradition, the style of a life lived by knowing that some things are possible while others are not. She runs on the street, the dust lifts the gowns that fall right below her knees. Then she turns, one, two, three, ten thousand times. The door to the house is far behind, stop running girl, hold on, let yourself be tempted by the heat, let the first sweat drops kissing your breast run free. Let yourself go, behind the thorns there’s Aptitude, there’s temptation…
This is Urus, the soul of a super sports car and all the convenience of an SUV: this and much more is the new Lamborghini, the first Super Sport Utility Vehicle in the world. It is inimitable and not easy to even imagine wiped out. The sound is the unmistakable sound of Lamborghini engines; you would recognize it among thousands, just like the perfume of your woman ready to fight the fight to have you all for herself. Urus is emotion, strong personality, pure design, and an absolute sports soul. The Lamborghini Urus is one of its kind. It is a real Lambo, ready to respond to your commands, fast, sporty, dynamic, your daily companion. Original, unrepeatable, incomparable, precious and particular. Could Aptitude miss out on the latest Lamborghini marvel? Aptitude is beauty, and the Urus is beauty beyond belief.
I feel like doing it all by myself, not sharing myself with anyone. He is there, maybe not, and I walk wishing for someone else to follow me, someone who wants me because he has never had me. I might give in, you are lingering in the air and I want you to touch me, to take me as I am, now not later. In a little while I will not be the same and he will take me as he is used to since I am his “thing” and I will forget this little black lace dream. Please, let me transgress before it is too late. Aptitude, when will you knock on my door?
Mulberry Street in the early twentieth century was the Italians’ home in America. Now there is “little” Italy there, and looking at it from above you feel like you’re looking at an old postcard sent more than a century ago. Chinatown has gobbled Little Italy; the one depicted with faith, passion and violence by Sergio Leone in his masterpiece “Once upon a time in America”. Don Vito, Michael, Connie and Santino would have no reason to wander around the streets of this small Italian boot inside the Big Apple. It fell down like Luca Brasi, and got up again like Jack la Motta. The Italians in America nowadays roam between 40th and 50th Street in the heart of Manhattan. Wearing jeans or a suit, they look American to the smallest details. Aptitude wanted to look out from a balcony and catch a glimpse of something that no longer exists.
Do you understand me? Have I made myself clear? What is beauty? It’s strange but beauty is a moment of sensations that confuse the body of a man with that of a Woman. The lines have the same intensity; the choice is up to you.It’s impossible to improve beauty by dressing it You have to make it dirty to enhance it. A hobo bent over in theCold of the Great Apple can give you a feeling of infiniteSadness, yet that is his beauty.Omar and Aptitude, together, are beauty. They didn’t meet by chanceOn the roads of New York, or maybe London, or maybe it was Miami, no it was Paris… We decided to go mad with him in a mental institution closed for decades near Milan.What a confusion beauty creates. An eye and a still of his image, I had to dirty it.Omar dresses as morning or maybe it’s evening but it doesn’t matter.Beauty has no time, it walks with you.I went in an attic to find what i was thinking of i wouldn’t need it anymore, I wouldn’t have found it if I searched for it. I threw on the back seat of my old car some clothes worn by time and their smell mingled with the leather of the tired car that asked only to be parked. We roamed a lot and than we choose the most raw, dirty, childish possible place to find the difference between beautiful and ugly, between opaque and light, between madness and its intangible beauty. Change and he changed. Come down I’ll take a picture. Look at the rest, I twill be like being with us among those old walls abandoned, tainted by the fear of not being and passing time. Yet he is now. Written by Maurizio Catalani
I am the night. The night you’d like to share with me. The night you are looking for, I am Lena the night you desire. I spent our night in Miami. It was hot, very hot. I had to take my clothes off, drenched by humidity. I changed my hair, I roamed a lot but not enough. I tried to find a part of you and for you I took off something, but not my skin. I am Lena Erickson and I feel better when I know you are watching me. You prefer me blond or dark-haired? Red or pink? The colors are the night and the night of Miami lies ahead. I am with Aptitude And he talks about you. He looks at me and he tells me to imagine that youAre watching me but I pretend not to see you. You know that the night in Miami blends with dawn? What if we pretend to spend that dawn together? Aptitude tells me to look at you, but you can’t touch me, not at night. You can only watch me.Far I roamed this night! They watched me as I stroke the poses for you and them. This is modeling. Making you dream while my dreams blend with yours, you and I are not that different, maybe we share the same thought. Miami by night is a nice place, gives you a sense of living and of doing whatever is beautiful to live for. Aptitude is a large vase of desire and I plunge my hand in it Trying to collect everything I could. Would you like to dress me in the colors of the night? I strip myself at night… you’d better invite me to Miami…Written by Maurizio Catalani
It’s 2.30 pm on a warm afternoon in March, hot and magnificent as only Miami can be. She has just arrived from Los Angeles, where she has called home for the past 2 years. The photographer and his team, 10 gorgeous boys, and myself are patiently waiting for her in the hall of the W hotel. Towering wedge heels, very short shorts, and a mane like a beautifiul lioness… you couldn’t miss her, Aida Yespica, has arrived. It has almost been10 years since I last saw her in Milan, and if you are wandering how her body looks now, the answer is: she hasn’t changed. It’s as if time stopped for her alone, and a 20 year old Aida Yespica is standing right before my eyes! She’s not on a diet, she is not vegan, and she loves pasta! So, it’s all thanks to the DNA!From the W hotel we all move together to the photo shoot location: a luxury villa on the exsclusive Palm Island in Miami Beach. The back stage looks like a womens paradise, there are so many beautiful shoes that even Carrie Bradshaw would be envious! I asked to Aida what size she wears, 9.5 she said. Perfect! Just like me, I was seriously considering to steal a pair!From the bathing suites to the bangles, and from the necklesses to the handcuffs designed by Agent Provocatour, everything in her wardrobe sweat sensuality… If you are expecting a super socialite life consumed with partying and late night rendez-vous, you are wrong. Aida told me, she wakes up very early in the morning to take care of her very charming 7 year-old son. She brings him to school and then goes to her english class followed by acting school. She then only takes a break to go to the gym. A daily routine, very different from the one she had in Milan, when Aida used to be a partygirl. Life has taken her far from that scene to place she now feels very happy. She said, Los Angeles is the place where she found her balance and her peace. Aida has become more of a homebody, and likes to spend most of her time relaxing at her house. But if you want to make her happy, she enjoys a nice meal at Nobu in LA or Cipriani when she is in Miami. She likes Social Networks, especially Instagram, but recently she has confessed, to making some mistakes. She would share content then after a few minutes delete it. She understood that using social networks can be dangerous, and it is much more beneficial to hire an exellent press office! Even with the flaws of social networking, Aida continues to enjoy using the applications to share with others how she lives and what she likes. At this moment Aida is looking to go into the Cinema industry, she wants to be an actress like the beautiful Angelina Jolie, one of her favourites. It seems that Aida will partecipate in an important cinematographic project, but for now it’s top secret, rumors say that she is going to act in “spanglish”. But for now, mum’s the word!Are we ready for the new phenomenon after Sofia Vergara?We will see!Written by Marianna Di Tommaso
You know, at times I get tired and run through the streets of Miami without even looking if the sea is calling me? Have you ever tried to run and be forced to stop because you’re short of breath? She made me miss it. She was alone but unique. She was running and the sea was watching her, usually it’s the other way round. Time froze me, a few moments to tell her that she couldn’t avoid being on the pages of Aptitude. We went round in the sand and my lenses strived to have the sun behind… yet the sun was there, right before me. There’s no need to talk to her, I let her move on her own. Rarely I don’t talk and I don’t ask the model an expression or tell her how to move or position the parts of her body. That’s good Tatyana… Do what you want for once I too like to watch and let the sunlight blend with your moon colored skin… There is no reason not to believe that God has created the woman, there is no reason not to believe that she isn’t divine.Tatyna lives under the skies of the world and when she drops her clothes the world falls at her feet. I let her run, smile, touch lightly her face with her hands, ruffle her hair, frown. She was ever beautiful and her fragrance stamped the sweet smell of the sea that touches Miami. We met again and she looked in the pictures the moments spent together.She smiled and looked like she was watching the pictures of someone else maybe distracted by her own beauty. Hard to know what you can do the following day. Tatyana is one of those women that can feel your calendar… alone…Written by Maurizio Catalani
Katherine for a day. Ocean Drive for a day. A day for you and me, alone, with her. Let her run on and on up and down that road that cuts through Miami. It’s the way to the sea and the sea is the cradle of the city.Do you want to walk over it step by step with Katherine Schule? Hop on Aptitude and get down at the end of the day. The sun is high and Katherine loves “hats”. Don’t cover her face… even if it doesn’t matter, she is beautiful anyway. They look at her, they watch her and it doesn’t happen often in Miami where beauty is at home. Cars line up just to have her for a minute and caress her body with their body work. Also the police stops by. “What about us?” You too. Beauty is a law to be respected. Katherine might have been born in the 1930s or 1970s or Tomorrow. Her beauty’s timeless. I take off the hat, I let the cars go by, I take her far from the traffic on Ocean Drive. She’s all for us now. The wind picked up the sand on her face and she points her eyes where she desires. She takes a look around and moves her hands between forehead and locks that keep on brushing the long eyelashes that adorn her brown eyes.One, two, maybe three moments frozen in succession on her face; Katherine Schule is Ocean Drive with the beach on her face, the hair blowing in the wind like the green palms and her legs long like the hot tarmac miles of the Ocean in Miami.Written by Maurizio Catalani
She made me lose my temper. Her naked body gave me no waiting time i had to have. I drank minutes; I threw them to the wind.I sent her flying up and down over the sun bathed streets and each time it seemed that my camera was framing her for the first time. Carrie has wings and she flies high over Miami. The color of the sky has no meaning. Carrie is dictating the rules. The cloud shadows and the hot sun await her to decide what to do.They caress her body without touching her, like light reflections that carve time in a beating of wings… No need to look for her, she will find you. She is always been there since you have always dreamed, followed, desired her.She turned naked towards me; she turned and turned over an over. I asked myself which Carrie I preferred. I gave up asking questions I enjoyed the time had with her for me, for you, for us. I am Aptitude and nothing is mine and i keep nothing for myself. Before shooting she asked my how id wanted her, how I wanted her to move, how to look at me.I held my breath she was always beautiful, perfect, her skin shiny and slightly bathed by the Miami sun. Then I turned and she was gone. I thought I had imagined everything and that nothing had ever happened. And than I understood... She had flown away. Dreams have wings.Written by Maurizio Catalani
It only takes one look to fall in love. Paolo Sorrentino as the “muse” of his new movie, “Youth”, has chosen Madalina. An Oscar winning body and gaze for a director who entered Hollywood from the main entrance. Madalina is a diamond from Romania and for thirteen years she has been a model in Milan. Now, New York, Los Angeles and Miami are her new home. “When I heard that Sorrentino had chosen me I almost brake down and cried…” that’s what happened to me when I saw her. She dreams to be an interior designer. She buys no clothes or bags, but furniture and furnishings for her home, her real passion. Try and ask her which is one of the things that she holds the dearest. She will give you the answer that you would never expect from a girl with the world at her feet. It is a foundation, which partly bears her name. It raises funds for various projects. In Nairobi, Madalina’s sweet smile caresses the face of an orphanage with 98 children. If you ask her what she likes of her job she answers candidly: “Giving dreams and emotions”. The same I experienced when I turned and I met her breath. I wanted to capture her eyes, to freeze her gaze, to let her lips touch my lenses. That is what I wanted from Madalina, to be kidnapped by her face and to dream with you with open eyes. Nowadays Madalina is a star shining over the most influent cities. She too loves to count the seconds of her life, which changes daily for the better and makes her dream. Just like we adore her Great Beauty.Written by Maurizio Catalani
“Next big thing”, in South Africa that’s what the call the girl from Wellington. Her blue eyes pierce you like two beaming lasers. Nicole pouts, but that is her beauty. I tried and tried againTo take pictures of her I didn’t like, but the result was always the same. Nicole looks at me like a little girl, a teenager, a twenty year old, and a forty year old. It’s the woman herself. It is her feminine beauty that enchants and lets it all be carried away through image and reality, mixing them up. Taking your eye off the viewfinder and looking at her while her eyes seek yours is a stroke of the same pen. Nicole doesn’t ask, she doesn’t have to.Her face, her body outlined in the lingerie, her ever-perfect hair, no matter how it moves about. I played with her without either one of us knowing it, or even realizing it. I tried and tried again to see if in one frame I could freeze a wrong moment, but Nicole does not know that I was asking the impossible of myself. She seems made of silk; she looks like she’s so soft and light that she would fly away with a gust of wind. Yet she projects such sweetness and sensuality that while she’s speaking, looking at you and walking you ask yourself if such a beautiful and delicate creature could really exist. You want to stroke her, and looking at her, you fell like you’re doing it. Nicole embarrasses you with her little smiles that caress a small and apparently pouting face. But then you stop looking and begin daydreaming. Nicole is the face of a fawn, a body designed and an irresistible veil of innocence.Written by Maurizio Catalani
A beautiful loft, a wardrobe full of clothes, perfect for each day and every hourReady to be worn.Giuliana instead loves her lingerie and that’s the only thing she would like to wear. It’s not a bright, sunny day, but she’s there, what else do you need? Her eyes seem fallen from the sky, her body drawn by Giotto.Her hips mingle with the rest of her body and her perfume is a sixth sense drug. Giuliana is wonderful, you have the feeling that you will never see one like her, the perfect and non-perfectible unexpected, you have the feeling that it will be impossible to meet one like her in ten or twenty more years.Her skin is soft like her smile and her words. Her movements disarm and let Aptitude caress them with a thousand shots. You can’t stop watching, desiring. Second turn into minutes of endless desire.She stops to gaze at the clouds of the huge building wrapping them and you can’t avoid capturing everything about her, and she turns to look at me as if she meant to tell me something… that I would never forget. Believe me, being Aptitude isn’t easy, but it’s easy to describe her, writing with pictures her endless charm.She’s tired, in a few moments we will leave her. She lies on the white sheets, loosing her body in them; she looks at us, her fawn eyes seem to talk to you about her an about everything else.Believe me.Written by Maurizio Catalani
The dark side of the night. It’s her, a companion of our thoughts; Mute, she drags you into solitude and searching.A veil of the moon lights up Miles in the Miami nighttime. The gaze, the face, the body, everything madeTo let her dream and raise the mild temperature accompanied by the wind that blows in warmed by the ocean’s waves. One, two, three, one hundred shots, yet the form is the same.Miles Bugby’s aesthetic talent never misses a beat.We wander in the night looking for a bright spot, yet he is the light.Enough is an old shutter or grating enclosing the gate of an old garage and he becomes part of the whole by magic. Take a ride with Miles at nighttime in Miami. The gaze of a thousand “shes” tries to capture his, to daydream about him, to freeze that instant to have him for at least an hour. Miles is not for all of them, but for one alone, she who has what he has, everything.Our night with Miles ends at dawn and Aptitude thanks him for the time spent, time set forever by that instant of light which describes him for you in all his extraordinary physical allure, his magical charm able to drive crazy all the girls we came across in Miami. Then again, this is what Aptitude is about, beauty without limits.Written by Maurizio Catalani
He created images and neologisms, stopped hearts and desires, bewitched common folk and artists. Federico Fellini and Marcello Mastroianni, face and pen of that movie that celebrated Italian cinema everywhere. ”According to me we can divide movies into before La Dolce Vita and after La Dolce Vita: it has broken the rules of narrative thanks to its audacity, it has shown that you could be honest on screen. Never had we seen a work with such a high morale, intelligence and maturity. It has changed history”. Words spoken by Martin Scorsese, and maybe we should believe him. With time Fellini has become a prejudice, an illogical analysis of a glimpse of life, sweet or maybe not. With these words in one of his last interviews, he told Positif, a French Cinema Magazine, about his arrival Rome: “I still remember the first time I arrived, in a tram, a small tram that left from the train station, left behind the city and crossed endless miles of countryside next to a Roman aqueduct. In the end this building, halfway between a hospital and a University would appear, it had a magical name Cinecittà.” That tram was numbered 8 and a half, than it turned into a “Street”, and by a giant leap in fantasy it turned into a ship that still kicks time in the butt. “Excuse me, Federico, can I take a picture?” “Who are you, paparazzo?” “I am Aptitude” Federico smiles and, almost turning his back to the camera reassures us. “Go ahead, shoot…”
Photography and I have always been distrustful of one another. It tried to force me in the shot, limiting in this way my space and reducing my field of vision. My exaggerated showy nature obviously left no room to justify the static nature that is the fundamental reason of its mandate. Contrasts. A difficult coexistence. Yet we flirted for a while, we exchanged knowing glances and promises of eternal sharing… But I never humored it. Not much anyhow. I had to concede a few shots, now and then, to appease my photographer friends; or as a register of birth for my works of music; in the shape of phonograms, posters, and bills. Just to get back to my real life, to the natural movement set by time, by encounters. By my need not to feel spied upon, observed, searched by the invading yet alluring lenses. Were those slides good for me? I don’t know. A game. That is something I can accept! The fact that it has been a game makes me feel good and less guilty. Vanity has nothing to do with it. Here, on this set we call life, you either love yourself or you don’t. Trying to stop the moments is a criminal way of killing your future. Delegating to a shot the responsibility of granting us an everlasting existence. The eyes work way better than the most sophisticated lenses. Inside is where the interesting things happen. It is inside that we appreciate the fragrance and the charm of people. While, if you have to take the camera out, load it and aim at the subject or the situation… everything vanishes. And you are back to being the silly voyeur, inconclusive and unemployed in the function of emotions. I liked myself in the dressing room. Behind the scenes. In the dim light of my success. When the lights go out: that is when you can see real talent. Many struggle up there, for hours, months, years, without losing a single drop of sweat. Worst of all, without succeeding. - Smile! - Excitedly says the photographer. I would like to tell him: Isn’t it dangerous to smile without a soundproof reason? Social media don’t call for spontaneity. Black and white is far more honest and sincere, always. The camera most of all loves children and the elderly, for various reasons they are out of the competitive race. Maybe, with our baby bums in the air on the changing table, we were able to give off a sincere smile, a genuine one. We would dash out of the printed picture to run towards the imponderable. The becoming luckily is all to be invented. Therefore both a Polaroid and the most sophisticated camera will love any carefree and dreamy moment. Let’s look inside ourselves. Let’s look at our own inner changes. Let’s also accept our inopportune defects. A bad exposure, reflexes and a clunky shutter, all things that really do not matter. My few shots in plain clothes, outside my professional environment, have been timid testimonies; I wanted to immortalize faces, landscapes and moments. Sharing the light, half-light and the wonderfully accomplice darkness. A few eloquent frames of life that overflow from an otherwise flat, colorless and solitary existence: just like many pictures tend to be. - SMILE!!! Someone shouted at me. - I do it 24 hours a day, I answered. P.S.: I would like to thank Roberto Rocco for having been a friend of mine outside any darkroom. Being a friend of mine under the light of the sun. I promise I will not storm against anyone who will use cameras as long as they will not disturb my calm and mellow lifestyle.
Perfection, when he jumps, he stretches them and they run with him in the wind. A perfect machine, a gazelle fleeing, covering miles as if they were feet, the eye on the finish line. He is just like Aptitude, till the end.
It is not easy to distinguish the divide between talent and transgression. Abel Ferrara’s hand on cinema is a dirty one, full of cravings and thoughts. Reality is what you wish was not, yet often is. You are just like Aptitude, Abel, you challenge yourself, you stop, than you start over again and no one has to show you the way.
Holding onto his Oscar, he thanked Fellini, Scorsese, the Talking Heads and Maradona a mix of cinema, music and passion for the Argentinian football genius. Paolo Sorrentino and Tony Servillo have always been a couple, a cinema union that seems to suffer no crisis whatsoever, right now they are on the set of the Neapolitan director’s latest movie “Them” that tells one part of Berlusconi’s life, guess which one.Them, a simple word, could mean everything even if it could sound a tad generic. The movie narrates the decadence of the Berlusconi court, not the political but the private one, the one lived in the media covered nights in Arcore. A long stretch of life, starting with the birth of the economically eternal love with Veronica till the gloomy ending in Bunga Bunga.Paolo sorrentino Paolo Sorrentino was born in Naples. He is the director and the screenwriter of his own movies. He won four European Film Awards, one BAFTA, five Donatello Davids, seven Silver Ribbons and one Oscar with The Great Beauty. Tony servillo Marco Antonio Servillo, born in Afragola, a few miles from the gulf of Naples. He won two European Film Awards, four Donatello Davids, Four Silver Ribbons, one Golden Globe, three Golden Ciaks and a Silver Marc’Aurelio for best actor at the Rome Film Festival. Toni Servillo this time turns into Silvio Berlisconi, his face becomes an Italian mask, just like so many years ago he turned into Giulio Andreotti for the Paolo Sorrentino movie Il Divo. In The Great Beauty he played the rich writer Jepp Gambardella, guide to the pleasure-loving Rome devised by the fantasy of his director.
The kitchen is the place he calls home. Italian Food is a trademark and his face is one of the most well known faces linked to Italian cuisine. Carlo Cracco is not just a name followed by a surname. He is an Italian “taste” firm in the world. He believes cooking is an emotion. Only those who can feel the emotion and know the wind it builds inside of you will win in this race we call life. The egg that once belonged to Columbus, he turned it into “Cracco’s”, he defined it as the ingredient inspiring his career the most. Today, Carlo is an opinion leader also outside the kitchen, thanks to his attitude and his way of interpreting his role. Television turned him into a star, turned his face into an emoticon, something that tells you what you are and what you wish to say. “At home, I’m always the one doing the cooking. Two things you’ll always find in my fridge are salami and salad”. Simplicity in the hands of someone who knows the road to success is huge and original. Carlo might seem far, far away but he’s easy to find. He has said it over and over - three months in TV and then you will find him in his restaurant; just knock on the door, I’ll be there. Aptitude knocked, Carlo was there
Marcello Mastroianni è la dolce vita, la dolce vita è Roma, bellissima e tutta da vivere, celebrata in un film di Fellini che ha reso la città ancora più eterna. E Marcello è quella faccia da italiano che corre veloce nella pellicola a fare il giro delle sale di tutto il mondo. «Non mi piaccio. Non mi sono mai piaciuto, neanche fisicamente. Non mi piaccio quando mi osservo allo specchio: questo nasino corto, questa bocca cicciuta. A me piacciono le bocche senza labbra e i nasi lunghi, aquilini. Io sono carino e un uomo non dev’esser carino. Più ci penso, più mi chiedo come sia possibile che una faccia simile mi dia da mangiare. Che la gente ci veda l’espressione di un’epoca, anzi il simbolo di un uomo ambiguo, confuso, egoista, immaturo?». Rispondeva così, Mastroianni, ad Oriana Fallaci, eppure era il volto bello di un’ italiano, l’uomo dei desideri di donne di colore e lingue diverse. Eppure è stato e sempre sarà Marcello, uno dei pochi che non dovrà mai dire il suo cognome. Centosessanta e passa film per quella faccia da italiano. Chilometri di pellicola ed allora permettete ancora un “frame” firmato Aptitude
Claudia, semplicemente Claudia. Claudia Cardinale una bellezza italiana, semplice, delicata, confonde il giorno con la notte, la luna ed il sole, il buio e la luce. Passano gli anni, tanti, ma Claudia confonde anche noi, la resa di Aptitude al “bello” é per sempre.
Roberto Bolle, dance and beauty, liked by everyone without any effort at all. Moves like water poured in a glass, unique fluid of the most celebrated dancer in the world. Rigorously ‘made in Italy’.
In 2010, on behalf of Tod’s, he signed with the Mayor of Rome the sponsoring agreement for the restoration of the Coliseum. 25 million Euros to pay history the homage it deserves. In 2011 Forbes ranked him, together with his brother Andrea, among the richest men on Earth. As of September 2016 he ranked 1121st (26th in Italy) with a net worth of 1.36 million dollars. Once Robert Orben said: “Every day I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I’m not there, I go to work”. Don Diego never stopped.
Andrea Bocelli is the king of the world. All his shows are pearls arising from a sea of music. He sets foot on every stage, he is Andrea Bocelli, an Italian on the roof of the world; his unique voice travels from New York to Rome, from Paris to London, from Milan to Los Angeles, from Tokyo and Beijing. He is the music and media heir to the great Luciano Pavarotti. Aptitude had to open the doors of its great “glamour” theatre to him !
Kevin’s myth was born to the tune of Marvin Gave’s “I heard it throught the grapevine”, played during the funeral dressing of “Alex’s” lifeless body. In “The Big Chill”, the actor playing Alex is Kevin, yet nobody will ever see him. The director of this cult movie, Kasdan, cut all his scenes, flashbacks included, and this made Kevin famous.“I’ve learned to accept failures and successes as part of a whole, that’s life. If you don’t experience things you make no mistakes…” Kevin, Hollywood’s sex symbol, correctly shares this idea with People, and this statement condences Kevin’s career. Fandango, The Untouchables, No Way Out, A Perfect World, JFK, The Bodyguard and than, Waterworld, Silverado, Robin Hood are only a few of his most famous movies.Yet there is Indian blood in his life, and with “Dances with Wolves” in 1990 looted Hollywood.The movie won seven Oscars and got five nominations. Best movie and best director. In 1998 the American Film Institute ranks it 75th in the Greatest American Movies of all time list. Kevin wrote history and whoever does that is never ordinary. Three wives and seven children, it’s clear that you can’t blame zero growth on him. Three women yet millions who desire him. Which woman in the world hasn’t desired him even if only for a day? One hour or just five minutes…“I’m happy with what I’ve done. I’m not always happy with the results, but I’m happy with the decisions I’ve made, because I made them. I think is an important way to deal with life.” This is the answer given by Kevin to David Giammarco of Cigar Aficionado Magazine in an interview given fifteen years ago. Today those words are set in time like the white hair painted on the front paws of his beloved “Two Socks”. Sixty years of Kevin Costner, many of which we have celebrated with him.Written by Maurizio Catalani
Seven years before, it was 1941, Mr. Miller one afternoon, having nothing else to do, was playing a melody on the piano that will make forever famous this little, now bigger, city in Tennessee. Chattanooga. He was celebrating that little train that cut trough town and, some years later, on that same train, with his mom and grandparents, little Samuel arrived some trains pass once in a lifetime, for Samuel the stops have been many more.Hi, can you tell me how come you are Samuel Jackson and not only Jackson like so many fucking individuals in the States? Why you are Pulp and the others aren’t. Why you are a Star making Wars and the others aren’t. You are Captain America and the others aren’t. You are Jackson and the others aren’t.For little Samuel, abandoned by his father, the streets in Chattanooga were filled with dust, the same Miller’s train lifted.Might I tell how wonderful it is, so wonderful, to set the camera, the lights, the diaphragm and that little black and white you need and than clicking on that Samuel’s face?What would you ask to him? I froze the pictures and he writes the rest with his expression. That astonished and grotesquely angry face when Travolta unintentionally shots and smears with blood the car in one of the most iconic Pulp Fiction scenes. His movies, in sixty-eight appearances, have cashed in over seven billion dollars. Die Hard, Star Wars, Captain America, Kill Bill, Jackie Brown, Jurassic Park, and Goodfellas. You feel like you have last seen that big face five minutes before while maybe he was trying to explain to you that there in not one reason, one bloody reason not to be unreal. “Well, yeah. I was just sitting here, eating my muffin, drinking my coffee, when I had what alcoholics refer to as a moment of clarity.” It is Jules Winnfield speaking, in Pulp Fiction. And maybe is life is the one of everyone. What is great is that who said those words became their owner. That’s why he is Samuel Jackson and not just Jackson. Meeting those who have made the history of cinema I’ve asked myself a thousand times what to ask them. But Aptitude doesn’t speak a lot. I want to know you and than I choose the image and not the words. Is a matter of ideas, of life style, of descriptive will. That i show I am I like to talk with you through a “frame”. Moreover, when you piss off someone what matters more, the expression on his face or the words that will follow?So shoot, seize the moment and tell it in the only language you know. Samuel Jackson hasn’t had an easy life. His childhood marked by a father who wasn’t present. Than you walk up and down, along those fucking moments when the brain demands many different things… but not reason. Than Spike and you climb up again. Tarantino puts him everywhere, also in his home drawers and then Spielberg and Scorsese and you find yourself running with the superhero in Captain America. It’s not for everyone.I went and re-read an interview with him and I’d like to share with you the things I liked. “I don’t choose movies because they pay a lot or because they will win a prize, I choose them because they mean something to me or they represent a challenge or they teach me something”. That’s Samuel Jackson speaking and maybe we have to believe him.I shot a few pictures in a dull moment during his stay in old Rome. A few minutes, maybe five, maybe ten, no more, but this is Aptitude to travel the world for days to freeze time in a second.Written by Maurizio Catalani
So much has been written about you and your family and their history of success. Tell me something about your family that nobody knows. Maybe not everyone knows that there is a brand new representative of our family’s fifth generation named after our first restaurant in Venice. What would you say is the largest reason behind Cipriani’s success? I don’t think there is one big reason but rather many components. Hard work and passion for four generations now, a style that does not impose, simple flavours served with love, a happy and relaxing atmosphere, and some luck. What is your favorite dish? The list is long and it depends on the mood and the situation. I can go from a typical Venetian dish like seppie in nero (squid in its own ink) to the most simple, but fantastic Norwegian crab with a touch of olive oil, and I can tell you that a perfectly cooked pasta al pomodoro always makes me happy. What is your favorite place to travel to and why? I typically try to open restaurants in cities that I like since I then have to spend quite some time in them. Recently, I have become very fond of Ibiza. There is some understated freedom and wonderful atmosphere in this naturally beautiful island that makes me want to spend as much time as I can there. Also Punta del Este where I can relax for a few days every year, that is a luxury! Is Italy doing better after the big recession that started in 2008? I think it’s improving but there is still a long way to go. Tell us what you find to be the most obvious difference between serving American and Italian customers. Considering that it is thanks to an American customer that my grandfather opened Harry’s Bar in 1931, I can say for sure that they are equally generous and they can both have a good soul. Your son is now working at Miami’s Cipriani. Is he loving it here? Describe the relationship you have with him. Actually both my sons Maggio and Ignazio are involved in all the projects that we do. They are based in New York and travel to the various locations. The relatonship I have with them is of great respect and I try not to interfere with their decisions, even if we might think differently at times. They opened both Cipriani Downtown Miami and Mr. C Beverly Hills mostly on their own and I have to say I am very proud of them and of the results they are achieving. Miami has been growing so fast in the past few years. What is your perception of this city? Miami has become more and more international, with great hospitality offers, cultural richness, events throughout the years and many new vibrant areas that are developing every day. What is your next goal, and your future plans? We have a lot on the plate at the moment, both in the States and abroad. We are opening a restaurant in Mexico City at the beginning of May, one in Dubai at the end of the year, we are discussing other projects in Miami and Ibiza. This said, my goal is to keep doing what I am doing and having fun doing it for as long as I can.Interview by Marianna Di Tommaso
Aptitude stays up all night long and doesn’t retire before down breaks.Nighttime in Miami is full of lights, restaurants, luxury cars, and beautiful women.And then… then there’s the music, and Cedric compels you to join him.If your are born in Marseilles, have Italian grandparents, and grew up amidst the concrete and the sidewalks of a French port, what impels you to travel all over the world and then go live in Miami? Asking Cedric this question leaves room for only one answer: music.One of the most famous djs in the world, his shoulders are broad enough to bear the weight of a Grammy Award.Lana Rey’s Summer Sadness remix made his dream of a Grammy come true. Not bad, for the kid who used to play on the docks in Marseilles. Cedric laughs in the face of Aptitude, he laughs in the face of life, laughs recalling his Italian grandma who raised him, overfeeding him as well.His dog looks at him; it’s difficult to go out for a walk with an owner who lives by night. But Miami has always mixed up day with night, and both Cedric and his small Maltese didn’t take long to get used to it.As a youngster, Cedric had already begun to assault his parents’ eardrums. At the age of fifteen he had already turned his house in a small club. Cedric wanted to be a soccer player, but he let Zidane do that. Cedric smiles and grips the thumb of his open hand. Those same hands that light up Miami at night. A night too long to live and all too “house” with Cedric at the console.Interview by Marianna Di Tommaso
So much has been written about your father’s family and their 100 year history of success. Tell me something about your Mother.Tell me something about your FatherMy mom Emilia Fabbri was part of the Fabbri family, an important publishing company in Italy, while my father’s family owns the Gruppo Desa Italsilva, a leading chemical group in Italy and France. Both taught me, with their daily example, how to always be humble and respectful, having very well in mind what are the authentic values in life, without giving too much importance to objects or material things. I am really thankful for the traditional and good severe education I received from them. From such a prominent family, did you have the innate desire to prove that you could surpass all expectations and do it your own way?I always had the innate desire to do something valuable, not for money nor to prove something, but for the passion of doing something positive and valuable, both in business and in life. This is the inner fire that pushed me – and it is still pushing! In 1998 you started MP Web. Did you think that almost 20 years later the internet would be such an integral part of our lives? At that time, I actually thought it would have happened even earlier. The new technologies are bringing new business opportunities in many industries, including the media and broadcasting sectors. Rules and mechanisms of how business works continuously change, and it is crucial to have the knowledge to quickly adapt, being flexible and ready. Being flexible is more and more a crucial necessity not only for companies, but for people too! Your company has been so brilliantly successful is there one sport “rights” distribution that is your “holy grail” of obtaining? I am particularly proud of our recent agreement with the National Football League (NFL) for the distribution of their TV rights overseas. NFL is a brilliant, world-renowned organization with over 2,000 employees, and their choice to entrust their international TV distribution to MP & Silva is one of the most meaningful recognitions for our group. What words of advice would you have for the up & coming-idea maker/dreamer/entrepreneur?Success is in the execution: having a good idea is only 10%, how it is realized and put in practice is 90%. The two ingredients for a successful execution of a good idea are passion and organization. I believe that was in 2007 just as the United States was in the middle of the Great Recession. Did this invigorate you to succeed even further?The international economy is always about cycles of ups and downs, and in those periods you must be balanced but brave enough to take opportunities. Regarding 2007, also Europe was in recession, and I believed that the USA would have recovered earlier. Your philanthropic side is a very well known as I am sure that you are modest about it. Tell me about Casa Famiglia. Do you think that a version of that could work in Miami?Casa Famiglia is a project ran in Africa by my family’s company, it’s a village for 40 orphans in Burkina Faso, we are really proud to give shelter, schooling and the formation for a future job to these kids. In Miami I’m supporting cultural projects like the New World Center and the Bass Museum, and we will see in the future what else can be done, eventually for kids. Why is art important to you? What is your perception of the art world in Miami?Who’s interesting you now on the art front?It’s very important for Miami to have become a prime international destination for arts. I believe that the recent growth and success of Miami could happen when it started to be not only a tourist city, but also a center for business and a city for arts. And for its residents it’s a great feeling to live in a city which is not only sun and beaches, but also arts and business. You moved your family from Milan to Miami. Is everyone loving it here? Is your wife Tatiana & your sons Giorgio & Nikolay enjoying their “American” life?They all love Miami, though they miss Europe sometimes, especially my wife. We are going to Italy, France and UK often though, spending most of our holiday periods there. And when we’re in Europe we miss Miami, of course! Best night out in Miami with your family would be?Cavalli and Casa Tua. I’m co-owner of Cavalli and I must say the food is unparalleled, while I’m also a Casa Tua lover, for the charming style and atmosphere. What’s next for Riccardo Silva?Developing new projects with passion and dedication, with something special for Miami