about me
who I am
My name is Michele Mazza. I come from Piacenza (Italy), but I live between my native town and Milano. I am a layout artist, journal editor and photographer.
My life is made of four passions: editorial graphic, photography, mountain and geology.
The last one has characterised the first part of my life. The other three, instead, are defining the present one.
I took a Master Degree in geology in 2005 at the University of Milan (Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra “A. Desio”) and, in 2009 I took a P.hD. in Earth Sciences. After that, I have been a Post-Doc Researcher for other four years.
My Academic career gave me the chance to travel a bit: Italy, Austria, United Kingdom, Hungary and Canada. Of course, the most exciting journays were those in Canada: Alberta and British Columbia!
Sampling of the Triassic section of Pizzo Mondello (Sicily, Italy), 2007
Ichthyosaurus bones on the shores of Willinston Lake (British Columbia, Canada), 2010
Hounting lodge on Willinston Lake (British Columbia, Canada), during a palaeontological field workshop (2010)
new ways
But life changes and it may happen to find new ways and let your other passions come out again to define your new personal and professional life. Photography and mountain have always been inside me.
I travel the mountain paths of Haute Maurienne and the Vanoise National Park (French Alps) from 2000; Val Cenis and Val d’Isere are a sort of second home for me. “My mountains” became of corse my favourite subjects in my photos, but I love to take photographs of every aspect of life and nature.
My first digital reflex was a Nikon D5100. Now I am equipped with a Nikon D7500.
Taking photographs to ibexes at the National Park de la Vanoise (Haute Maurienne, Vanoise)
On the crest of the Ouille Noire (3330 m), Haute Savoie (Francia)
Seeking for details on the shores of an alpine lake at the Col de la Vanoise (2522 m), Haute Maurienne (France)
your past designs your future
I mentioned that I have a P.hD in Earth Sciences but, if we want to be completely honest, I am actually a micropalaeontologist.
I know: WOW! A very long and captivating word…but it simply means that I was used to study microscopic fossils.
More precisely, conodonts: microscopic parts of the feeding apparatus of a eel-like marine organism, which lived for about 550 million years and extinguished at the end of the Triassic, 200 million years ago. The morphologies of these teeth-like elements are very articulated and spectacular.
That’s why I fell in love with them many years ago and I let them to define an important part of my life. I was inspired by these tiny and lovely fossils to create the logo of my new activity!
The initials of my name outline the shape of a conodont crest in lateral view!
But why getting inspired by a conodont for a graphic activity? Because I wanted my logo to resamble what I was and what I am: it symbolizes my past and it designs my future