Nicola Bernardi claims to resemble a thumb with a goatee. If that’s not enough to make him interesting, he is currently working on translating, from Italian, a book about cycling the length of Japan, narrated partly with photos and comics – unCOMMON:Wheels.
Born in Italy, Bernardi majored in Japanese when he studied in Venice after high school. His language studies indirectly propelled him into photography. “In 2011, I was living in Sapporo, Japan, for a study exchange and my parents bought me a camera to take photos of Japan for them,” he says. One day he decided to try the camera out, and a short walk to the convenience store turned into an extended photo safari. “Photography was an obsession from that moment on,” he says.
In 2011, Bernardi started a ‘365 project’ while teaching himself photography. “I was taking pictures every day, and studying online every night,” he says. “In 2012, at the end of my project, I decided I wanted to be a photographer.” He left Japan and started assisting photographer Eolo Perfido in Rome.
Now based in Melbourne, Bernardi has just had his second solo exhibition there. His first was in 2015 at his birthplace, Casale Monferrato, Italy. In 2015, he was a finalist for the Head On Photo Festival Portrait Prize, and was also runner up in the Portrait category of Australia’s Top Emerging Photographer.
Bernardi says shooting portraits revolves around people and their stories. “Often, I depict them with a ridiculous amount of colour and energy, a clear translation of how I see life,” he says. This style has brought him work with brands including Jaguar, Opel, Martini, Vodafone, Specialized, and many others.
Bernardi just completed a project with which he has a strong emotional connection. “I just finished putting together an exhibition for Project 24: 24 photo shoots with 24 people in 24 hours, nonstop,” he says. “What began as a challenge, became a way for me to speak about how I felt about my father being diagnosed with Leukemia and having to battle cancer.”
For Bernardi, Melbourne may not be home for too much longer. “The only thing that I know for certain is that in a couple of years I would like to move to New York,” he says. He feels that he will reap a rich harvest of stories to tell there. “As long as I have a camera by my side and someone to tell the story of, I’ll be happy.”