School of Shamanism

S1 EP17: Capturing the moment between worlds with Roberto Ricciuti

• School of Shamanism • Season 1 • Episode 17

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In this episode of Walking Between Worlds, Giada welcomes photographer Roberto Ricciuti, a friend of over a decade, for a deeply reflective conversation about art, transition, and the quiet courage of reinvention.

Roberto shares his journey from the structured world of IT in Italy to building a full-time photography career in Scotland. Together, they explore what it means to shift identities, to listen to the creative voice that was once hidden, and to trust the sensitivity that asks to be expressed.

They speak about instinct versus technique, commission versus creativity, and whether an artist is someone who creates meaning, or someone who captures it. The conversation moves into themes of memory, immortality, and the responsibility of leaving something behind, whether through images, children, art, or simply the way we live.

This is an episode about noticing the light. About catching the moment before it disappears. And about allowing the hidden parts of ourselves to come forward.

Because sometimes walking between worlds isn’t about choosing, it’s about reframing.

Connect with Roberto Ricciuti:

Connect with Giada Gaslini:

About the Host

Originally hailing from the vibrant city of Milan, I’ve spent the past two decades traversing the globe in a quest for spiritual and personal growth and combined with 25 years of international corporate work experience. From navigating the vast landscapes of Australia in a campervan to finding tranquility living in a Buddhist monastery in Nepal, my journey is nothing short of extraordinary. Along the way, I’ve delved deep into Buddhist teachings, yoga, and shamanism, becoming Shamanic Teacher,  Forest Therapy Guide, Esoteric Numerologist, Shamanic and Integral Yoga Teacher and Ikigai Coach. In 2013 I settled in Edinburgh, where  I founded the Art and Spirituality Centre, a social enterprise and the School of Shamanism, where I passionately help others on their own transformative journeys.

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CHAPTERS

Welcome Roberto Ricciuti

The artist who was always there

Between craft and calling

The art of leaving something behind

Where to find Roberto

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Roberto

So I believe we transition we made sections between a world and another continuously. Like now we are probably moving to another world and we don't know.

Giada

Hello everyone, and welcome to my podcast with a season Walking In Between the Walls. Today I've got the pleasure to welcome a person that I've known for 12 years, I think it will be 13 years this time, Roberto Ricciuti, a wonderful photographer, a very good friend. So welcome Roberto, thanks so much for accepting my invitation. So would you like to let us know, apart from the fact that I've already anticipated what you are doing, a little bit about your career, your work?

Roberto

Well, uh, first of all, uh hello everybody, thanks Giada. My career started in Italy about 20 years ago, when I started basically working as a photographer after left the world of uh IT. And since then I changed other ways my words. I moved to Scotland in 2013, like you, if I remember well, and we met straight after that. And I basically started my photographer career in the UK. That was probably more successful than in Italy, because I managed not much about in terms of money or but doing what mostly I wanted, that is, uh, to to live in this world, to to work full-time as photographer. My my job spaces from corporate uh until arts and uh music, entertainment in general, so uh I like to focus on more fields, not just one only, because this keeps me much alive and uh focus on improving.

The artist who was always there

Giada

Yes, wonderful. And you have already anticipated which are the worlds that you're walking in between, which is the second question. So which were and which still are, or maybe they're different ones nowadays.

Roberto

I believe that uh life is a journey in which you develop and not you just uh focus on being a person and stay there forever. So I believe we transitions, we we made transitions between a world and another continuously. Like now we are probably moving to another world and we don't know. So if we wanted to be practical in a way, you know, and the way that I moved, my my world was in Italy before with my friends, my life there with the son, and then I moved to Scotland where I completely moved to another world. In terms of uh personal development, uh I'm surely a different person from since 20 years ago, since 40 years ago. Unfortunately, I'm that old, but even a bit more. But uh, what I mean is uh that probably the biggest terms of career is that I studied IT and I was very much in that world. Uh I was working as a technician, and then at some point I started feeling that uh something was missing in my life. And from like uh I I used to take pictures in travels, that it was my passion, and people were liking them, so that encouraged me to try to develop more that field on me, which I was feeling like I could offer my perspective of the world. It's a little tiny things, but it was making me feeling better with myself, and slowly this became a job. Um, so my transition was that from that world, IT, very very like in in into like computers and office life, and then uh moving to something that was making me more alive, more around, more looking for something more creative. That's probably my transition from a world to another.

Giada

Yeah, exactly. So uh from an internal point of view, when you just uh merge yourself into the uh artistic field, what do you think that there is an inner transition when you are uh stepping into that role, uh wearing that hat? Does it something change inside you because you tune straight away back into a world, into a role in which the focus is different, your perspective, your eye is different when you need to grab and you do it in a marvelous way, that moment in which the subject of your photography, if it is a singer or if it is a person in the in the corporate world, and you need to grasp that element that is highlighting the beauty of the soul of that person and that subject in that moment. What is the inner transition that is happening?

Roberto

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, the the transition is uh is a long process, first of all. Like what I do today is very different, even from what I was doing when I was starting photography. So it was uh in a way a journey to discover myself and to discover the inner myself. I think we should go even earlier when I started to listen to a different kind of music, for example. And there was a moment in my life in which I was listening, what the radio was passing by, and absolutely beautiful songs. But at some point I started to find much before Spotify came out, so it was more difficult to find something different. And from that moment I started to feel a different myself. It was a way to find out that yes, I'm a person, but I'm not that person that I always believed that I was until now. That I think led to feel myself more and more um used to change. Like I changed a lot of things in my life, I changed political ideas, I changed the uh places, uh, I changed kind of music that I was listening, but also I changed it the development to photography. So at the beginning I was with full instinct, of course. I uh I didn't have any knowledge, so I was just taking the camera, putting in automatic, and sometimes my pictures were like, Oh, I don't like them. Sometimes they were exactly showing the moment that I was seeing from a perspective. When the people started to tell me, oh, this is a beautiful picture, this is crazy, how did you do this? I started to believe that maybe that was my my path in a way, you know. And there was a moment in which I was thinking, should this keep this as just a development, personal development? But I really enjoyed to do photographs, so it was something that I pushed my career a lot on, and doing also things that are very different from that very first beginnings of photos, but I still love a lot. Some people like I do a lot of conferences, for example, now, and I still try to find maybe uh an artistic point of view of that. I know sometimes it's difficult when a person is just talking in front of microphone, but for me it's not just only that. There can be the setting around, there can be everything. So that the to come back to your question from the beginning, what is the I think there is a sensitivity inside you that uh it was high hidden in myself for a long time, and then at some point I let it go out and I discovered that there was something that I shouldn shouldn't have hidden hidden for a long time, but you should have been staying with me earlier. I remember when I was a kid, for example, something that I don't mention often, but I used to write the poems by myself. Wow, that's discovering. Uh so there was uh an instant. Then I at some point I stopped. I don't know, suddenly I stopped. I didn't, I wasn't, but you know, there was an artistic side in myself that I wanted to make uh maybe it's some point I didn't see I didn't feel like I I should have continued that. But then after 20 years, maybe after 15 years, I felt again that there was a a different way to to express myself that was coming from my internal side.

Giada

Yeah, and now your way to writing poems happens through the light instead of the camera, and just now it's easier, yeah.

Roberto

Probably I wasn't very good with the language, maybe I'm better with the camera.

Between craft and calling

Giada

Write sonnets as well, and uh pretty much paying attention to the metrics. Uh, I remember that. Yeah, I think it was a problem with sorry. I think that's the problem with the Italian schools sometimes that they just focus on you to be not making mistakes, to be very around the metrics and the no, well, I was doing that in my free time because in that in that in those in those times I was actually having uh uh uh a boyfriend that was very young and he was studying literature at the university. And so we were just uh making fun jokes and writing to each other this on it. So it was very much uh in uh into the topic. So I just started that uh just out of the blue. I've always I've always loved writing, you know, because I studied as well literature, but just the foreign the foreign ones, but I've always loved writing. But definitely it's something that I don't know, I mean nowadays probably I would write down in the same way I journal, but I wouldn't probably write down poems, but you never know. Yeah, and so within this this element of paying attention to the metrics or paying attention to the techniques, which is what you marvel marvelously master and following your intuition. How do you manage this contradiction or not? Is this not this division between these two worlds when you are over there in your role?

Roberto

Well, I'm lucky enough, uh as I said, because I do a job that keeps me creative despite maybe sometimes it's not uh that the creativity that I had at the beginning, but for sure I have much more confidence now that I used to have because of course uh I I practiced a lot, I worked a lot, and now it's been uh 13 years that I've been professional photographers in Scotland and full fully professional photographer since 2021. So it's been a long journey for me, and I don't think they are in conflict these words anymore. Of course, you always need to be a bit commercial to give the clients what they need, and I think I'm quite good at understanding that. But at the same time, I think my clients appreciate also the fact the fact that I'm not just in framing a person, but I just trying to find also a way to frame that in a nice way and to to make it looking as the better, the best. So when I need like uh to decompress, uh it's easy. My job is um, I think it's a problem of many freelancer jobs. Sometimes it gives you a lot of space, and sometimes it's very full. And especially for me, like summer is always the busiest moment of the year, and winter is a bit more quiet. So in winter, I usually try to focus more on myself, to do the projects that I left on the on a side uh because I couldn't do, and to develop myself. That's how maybe these words can can communicate with yes.

Giada

Yeah. And what would you say that is your definition of artist? Because it's always a definition that I normally dislike when people define myself and they say by am an artist, as if it was just like a separate protected category to differentiate themselves from the creativity that everyone can get access to. And so I always like to see what's your definition of artist? Do you define yourself as such or what are you saying?

Roberto

I'm not exactly an artist, I don't think I am because uh what I do is mostly working on commission about uh jobs that the people expect to develop in a certain way. Of course, I try to put my artistic side. Uh, I worked uh in galleries in the past and with galleries still now for projects, photography, and I can see with real artists what uh it means. I think also art today is much about the um meaning that you have uh behind like a masterpiece. It's not just painting a beautiful uh painting with the perfect uh you you want to give a message. So in in my case, it's not that I want just to develop my but your pictures are masterpieces, uh yeah. No, I I I say that when I'm free from my work, I look for more for that. Like it's not that uh I look, but he looks for me. Like I want, I feel like I need you know, like there is some beautiful moment that I wanted to take that picture, and I will I feel like I need to have my camera around. Sometimes I don't now because I'm not always with them, with that when I'm going out. Uh, but but I believe that's uh I'm more in my case. I want to say that uh I feel like I'm more a person who adapts very well to the situation and catches the good moment rather than to create the moment as I want. I can do that, but I feel like I am more confident and good at doing the at capturing the moment. So I believe artists uh often uh want to change. Like we they they they have an arrogance in a way that is they think the job can change the world, but it's a good thing, in my opinion, because these jobs change the world and they continue changing the world. So maybe not all of them, but some of them are able to do this, and this is what an artist can do. He can use a different language to show the beauty or the worst or the moon, the world to to help this world to heal from that.

Giada

Yeah, but but I yeah, I do believe that also if even with your commission pictures, the one of the concerts, festivals, or whatever you change, you can change the career of an artist of another artist like you, just a different field, yeah. And you pass on an emotion, a big emotion, just by looking at what you have captured in that moment.

Roberto

Don't get me wrong, I consider myself good.

Giada

You are extremely good.

Roberto

I just feel like that uh my way is a bit different from the classic artist that the visual art, the visual art, yes. But all the times that I'm going for a concert, for example, is uh one of the jobs that I do the most, and maybe um my Instagram is full of pictures of concerts. I always get an emotion going there. I always get uh a feeling like before the gig, uh, what's what is gonna happen? I don't know. I sometimes I go arrive prepared, but most of the times I don't know what I'm not don't know what to expect with the lighting, every venue is different. So usually we have just three songs, for example, and my my challenge in that moment is to find a way to to immortalize this artist in a way that maybe is forever. Most of the times there's just another picture in the world, but uh I I have pictures I'm very proud of taking, and maybe sometimes you know there is also the personal emotion, like some of my pictures that I felt that they are the most beautiful. I took they have never been used by newspapers, for example. I work with an agency, so that's how mostly my pictures are uh published. But sometimes I see pictures that are never considered very good, and they are the ones that they've been used the most. So there is one picture that, for example, uh that uh I am very um affectionate because uh it represents uh that was at the book festival, and I took this picture of uh Scott Hutchinson, the leader singer of uh um Friday Rabbit who committed suicide in 2018. Uh so it was the year before he came into the book festival, and that picture for me was I don't know, it was the right moment. It was the evening uh we had uh I had a good lighting, I found a good setting for uh it was a portrait picture. And that picture I'm very related to because it's something that stays with me. I I had the chance to talk with him, and I used to like a lot their band, so I could tell him, and it was a very uh funny moment, uh, despite these pictures are quite serious. This picture was used widely after he disappeared first and then he was found dead. So that is something that sometimes I I look at that picture, I feel like it's something that I left for the world, but um I have mixed feelings, um, but for sure it's a picture I feel very much mine. Uh is the way that I wanted to represent him. And uh yes, some pictures are staying with you more than others, of course.

The art of leaving something behind

Giada

And and before you mention something that you are just speaking about immortality, just came to my mind that the poem of John Keats, or the two Grecian urn that I remember when I studied the literature, because there is this Grecian urn in all the drawings around, and it speaks about I was actually searching for that while you were speaking. It's a beauty's truth, truth, beauty, that is all. I mean, just as a long poem, and it speaks about uh the fact of of course uh through through through poetry, through the urn, there is this immortality because we will remember and celebrate this dance, these people that are dancing forever, and so you have the capacity of being of taking into immortality when you are, of course, capturing that moment. And so, as a final question, I'm asking you for people that are not doing for you what you do, how could we all help others in uh say taking the moments in which we live into the immortality through memories, through being authentic in that moment? What's your vision if you need just to stay out of the focus of the photography element, but within the artistic and magic field, when we are making art and make also cooking can be making art in a wider concept, how can we contribute to this immortality?

Roberto

Well, I believe that one of the missions of uh men on earth is that we want to live a sign. This sometimes uh leads to ego, massive ego. But we can leave science in many ways. We can leave kids behind us, we we can leave uh pieces of art, we can leave photographs at that state that remembers people how they do, even if today is much difficult to create a photograph that stays forever because, of course, it's uh something that uh continuously is renewed. But I hope that there is an afterlife. I just wrongly believe that's a simple and somehow I believe there is an afterlife because there must there are so many questions unresolved here, and uh so maybe we will find out one day what is we can live in sense of artistic, uh, what we can live here. I always think that the the good thing would be like to live a better world than the one where we're in. Yeah, I don't think we are doing this at the moment for many reasons. There are too many signs that we are not doing, but I also believe in in life we maybe we can have in life of the world, not our life, but in the life of the world we can have moments that are repeating themselves, like in a sequel. This is a moment of obscurity in a way, but there will be always light after the obscurity. So we need to to stay strong, to understand what happens, and to be alert about the things that are not okay for according to our beliefs, but at the same time, we need to keep faith that we can do better things to say to to improve this world in our little way, but we can do this.

Where to find Roberto

Giada

Absolutely. And where can where can people find you online?

Roberto

Oh, okay. So, uh well, my main contact is probably the website where it shows more on my portfolio and everything, is uh www.robertoricciuti.com. It's not, I know it's not easy. My surname, uh basically it's the same for Instagram, it's Roberto Ricciutti Photography. Um, these are the two main contacts for for me. And you are all always welcome to if you need a corporate event or uh an artistic uh event. I can cover a lot of range of photography, as I say, portraits, and I work a lot with festivals. So often you can meet me in Edim Brown and Glasgow in person in concerts or in between the worlds, Edim Brown and Glasgow and the train. The train is in with the next podcast.

Giada

Yes, I'll invite all of you to have a look at his uh Instagram with grid, which is really full of amazing pictures, absolutely gorgeous. Absolutely.

Roberto

Okay, thank you very much, Jada, for having me.

Giada

Wonderful, thank you so much for your time, and I'm looking forward uh in uh in a few months with a new topic to invite you again and see uh wider opinion and definition of all your artistic work, then maybe you will have more in your portfolio.

Roberto

Yeah, thank you, thank you very much.

Giada

And hopefully you soon again.

Roberto

Cheers.

Giada

Thank you so much, thank you.

unknown

Thank you.