THE BOOK
I’ve always had a deep love for reading. Books carry us beyond the everyday, letting us see the world through someone else’s eyes. This past May, that love led me on a small adventure in Milan. Together with our talented photographer, Vratko Barcík, I set out to explore a different kind of storytelling—through photography.
Our project was inspired by a book I’ve long admired, Last Summer in the City by Gianfranco Calligarich. While the book guided our imagination, we created a visual story of our own:
In THE BOOK, a man begins his ordinary morning dressed in a blue Prada shirt, moving through the familiar rhythms of daily life. During his morning walk, he stumbles upon a book, and the moment he opens it, he is captivated. By the time he returns home, he cannot put it down—the world outside begins to blur as the story pulls him in. The blue of his shirt anchors him in reality—routine, the everyday—but as he becomes absorbed in the story, he changes into a black shirt, marking his passage into the inner, imagined world. Milan transforms along with him: the Duomo glows differently, the metro hums with new energy and the city’s vibe merges with his imagination, creating a vivid, almost dreamlike “second life” that exists entirely within the story.
In the final, poetic moment, he returns to his flat. The version of himself from the imaginative journey reenters in the black shirt, a mirror of the world he just inhabited. Then, in a subtle yet striking gesture, he changes into a yellow shirt, bridging the two worlds. The colors—blue, black, yellow—trace a path from reality to imagination and back again, showing how a story can transform the everyday into something extraordinary. As he sits quietly, the frame lingers on the title THE BOOK, a reminder that the power of a story lies in its ability to absorb us completely, letting fiction and reality intertwine in ways we never imagined.
Walking through Milan shooting this project reminded me why I started SKYE Academy: language and stories are not just about communication—they are about creativity, exploration, and perspective. Shooting this project allowed us to experiment with storytelling in a new way, blending real streets with imagined moments. Every corner, every shadow, every fleeting smile became part of a larger visual narrative, showing how creativity can transform everyday experiences into something extraordinary.
“The project wasn’t just about a book—it was about stepping into a story, letting imagination carry you through the streets of Milan, and seeing the everyday transform into something extraordinary.”
— Karl, Founder & CEO, SKYE Academy