AFNI was born in Milan in 1989 on the initiative of Paolo Fioratti (internationally renowned naturalist photographer, creator and then director of the magazine “Oasis” and currently honorary president of the Association) and has spread throughout the country with operational sections in the north, in the center, in the south and in the islands.

Established to enhance the potential of naturalistic photography, for a better knowledge, documentation and dissemination of the characteristics of natural environments, it was the first to take the need to decisively address the problem of possible damage, directly caused to living species by the photonaturalist, culturally unprepared or made unwary from the desire for success. Even today this is one of the qualifying points of the statute of the Association which has set itself the goal of spreading naturalistic knowledge through new ways of doing photography, aimed at finding images rich in content and particularly significant, as well as technically correct and aesthetically Nature photography as a matter of culture.

The A.F.N.I., Association of Italian Naturalist Photographers, understands naturalistic photography as a matter of culture, as a means of narrating one of the infinite chapters of the great book of Nature. To do this, it is important for the photographer to understand that the subject’s “ecology” is essential, be it an environment as a whole, a single species or a behavioral situation.
Only then can he consider himself a naturalist photographer. This vision of a more cultural photograph is particularly important today when the environment suffers violence of all kinds, since the photonaturalist’s ethics stems from knowledge and without it he risks becoming a vandal.

In short, the photo is not conceived as a series of snatched shots wandering with the telephoto lens and focusing exclusively on the “sporty” aspect, the rapidity of focus, or the “difficulty” of the subject. These are the surrounding conditions, certainly important, indispensable and suggestive, but what matters above all is the meaning of the “discourse”.

It is with this mentality that the A.F.N.I. it proposes, through the activities supported by the Governing Council, by those organized locally by the Sections, and by the contribution of all the members, to give concrete help to the knowledge and therefore to the protection of our natural heritage.