Full Frame features photo essays and conversations with photographers.

"When the last tree is cut, the last river poisoned, and the last fish dead, we will discover that we can't eat money..." — Chief Seattle



Since 1971, Greenpeace has been fighting environmental degradation, condemning environmental criminals and challenging governments and corporations that fail to safeguard our environment and ultimately our future.

The Mediterranean is key to the survival of the Atlantic northern bluefin tuna, and the waters surrounding the Balearic Islands are a vital spawning ground. Every year, the fish come to reproduce in the warm Mediterranean waters. And every year, a fleet of fishing vessels races to catch them, encircling whole schools with nets known as “purse-seines.”

The Rainbow Warrior, one of the Greenpeace's most popular ships, spent two weeks in the bluefin tuna fishing grounds, monitoring that the fishing season's designated closing date was enforced.

In the photographer's words:

My grandfather and my father were the local photographers in a small village in southern Italy, where I grew up. They would take simple, black and white portraits on their trusty old wooden camera. When I was a baby, my father would keep me in his darkroom — in that soft, dim light and surrounded by all his chemicals — so I could sleep while he worked. That was my introduction to the world of photography.



As I got older, he would take me to weddings almost every weekend where he would talk me though his techniques and teach me the basics of photography. He is a man of very few words but he would come alive when showing me how his super Ikonta worked and how I should handle it.



For me, the only way I can share what I see is through my images. I am not very good with words — written or spoken — and in that respect I guess I am a lot like my father. Like him, taking pictures is the only way I know how to communicate.



I try to capture fleeting moments of history — fleeting for us but moments that will affect others for the rest of their lives. As a photographer, I want to share these stories with people around the world and — I would like to hope — with generations to come.



I will spend days with a person to gain their trust, to gain access to their world in order to find the image. The camera gives you that sacred access. And then I will just become invisible, and disappear in their world.

About the photographer:

Giulio di Sturco is a 29-year-old Italian photographer who divides his time between Milan and New Delhi. He studied photography at the European Institute of Design and Visual Arts in Rome, and has covered North-American issues for many Italian magazines such as D (La Repubblica delle Donne), Internazionale, Vanity Fair, Marie Claire, Anna, Amica, Geo, lEspresso and others from his base in Canada and New York. In November 2007, he won the first edition of the Reporters Without Borders contest "A Better World" and, in February 2009, he won a World Press Photo award (1st Prize, singles) in the Arts and Entertainment category.