"Next Africa" was an amazing work, which I think exposes the true essence of the country. What was your experience like working for the Maasai community, creating these wonderful brochures for them and having this work chosen to support the Project Migration?

I'm so glad you like this work, because I love it so much! I started this collaboration with the Maasai community in a magical way, without looking for it. The owner of the Kenyan lodge found my work on the web and he chose me as art director for the lodge's publicity materials. He proposed a barter: I designed the brochures for their camp, in exchange for travel. When I got there I was overwhelmed by the beauty of this untouched world; in Kenya, in a tent surrounded by the lions of the savannah, I realized that God is the best designer. :) "Next Africa" is a way to share that Beauty; the images were processed with Photoshop and I added other objects and texts from my travelogue. This photographic project was selected to support Project Migration, a project created by Hilary Rowald and promoted by the musician Sting so I had a solo exposition in New York and in Rome.

What "tools of the trade" did you use in 360 DEGREE?

I wanted to do new experiments in photoshop, software that I love! I began creating images I had never done before. I took the photos in 360 degrees (I learned it was better to shoot vertically and without wide angle), then I created a panoramic photo, I worked on it using layer mask, and then I changed the coordinates using polar coordinates (Photoshop CS5)...Rome has done the rest :-)

Can you tell us about your project, "RIGHT TO HAPPINESS"? What inspired you to create this project?

It is a project about the Right to be Happy! The idea comes from the consideration that if it is true that those, who govern us, who instructs us, who takes care of a nation, at the bottom helps to make this nation happy, then you need to ask everyone their own idea of happiness, so the search for improvement can put the person at the center. I photographed ordinary people and very famous artists and intellectuals, in Italy, in South Africa, among Maasai people of Chyulu Hills in Kenya and Muslim population of the island of Lamu. I'd like to take photo/interview about happiness in other countries. First part of this work is on web www.speranzacasillo.com/dirittoallafelicita

Most of your works are very inspirational pieces, including "ROOTS, SELF PORTRAITS FROM MY PAST LIFE", "BEING YOU" and "PORTRAITS". What drives you to create or to capture an image?

Great question! I think that these inspirations already exist, they are in the air, and there are people who are able to capture them. Depending on the available tools, they can also transform them. If you're a photographer, you transform them into images; if you are a musician, you transform them in music; if you are a baker of the finest breads... The project ROOTS www.speranzacasillo.com/roots was inspired by a book on white lions (Mystery of the White Lions by Linda Tucker) I think that each of us puts into the world vibrations that linger and influence the art of other people, in other places, perhaps in other distant times. The intuitions are there to be received, processed into new vibrations. The vibrations remain and will remain even after us. That's why you should only express Beauty. For all these project ROOTS, SELF PORTRAITS FROM MY PAST LIFE, BEING YOU and PORTRAITS, I shoot the photos and develop them further with Photoshop.