Moreno Monti

Moreno Monti is an Italian photographer based in Milan, known for commercial work and for collaborative projects made with Matteo Tranchellini. His name is most often associated with the CHICken series, a long-running photographic project that stages chickens like portrait subjects and treats their variations as a visual study of difference, identity, and companionship.

What Moreno Monti does

Monti works as a photographer, with a practice rooted in studio production and commercial imagery. His public profile is shaped less by a single auteur style than by a sustained collaboration with Tranchellini, in which both photographers contribute to the final image. That shared authorship matters to his work: the photographs are built through planning, staging, lighting, and a close editing process rather than through quick documentary capture.

The clearest example is CHICken, a series that presents chickens as carefully composed portrait sitters. The project takes a familiar farm animal and gives it the visual treatment often reserved for people, fashion subjects, or celebrities. The result is playful, but it is also disciplined photography: attention to plumage, posture, background, and color carries the images.

Why the collaboration matters

Monti and Tranchellini have worked together in Milan for more than two decades. Their partnership is central to understanding Monti’s work because the finished image is described as the product of a single vision made from two perspectives. That kind of collaboration is common in advertising studios, where concept, lighting, production, and retouching may involve more than one maker, but it is made visible here as part of the project’s identity.

In practical terms, the collaboration shapes how the work feels. The photographs are polished and tightly controlled, yet they still leave room for the quirks of the birds themselves: combs tilt, feathers fray, and faces look unexpectedly individual. The studio method turns those details into the subject rather than treating them as noise.

What does CHICken look like in practice?

CHICken uses the language of portraiture, not wildlife photography. Chickens are isolated against simple settings, lit to emphasize texture, and framed with the same seriousness that a fashion or advertising shoot might bring to a human model. Names, pairings, and breed differences become visible through surface details: feather pattern, body shape, posture, and color contrast.

The project’s effect comes from the gap between subject and treatment. Chickens are ordinary, domesticated animals, but the images give them a composed and sometimes humorous dignity. That shift is where the work earns its attention: it makes viewers notice how visual convention can assign value, personality, and even social meaning to a subject that would normally be overlooked.

Why it matters

Monti’s work matters because it shows how commercial photography techniques can be repurposed for conceptual image-making. The same tools used for product and advertising photography—controlled lighting, staging, consistency, and visual polish—can also support a project about difference and affection. In that sense, the work sits between commerce and art without cleanly belonging to either side.

It also helps explain why photographic collaboration can be important. Rather than presenting the image as the expression of one isolated author, Monti’s practice shows how a shared studio process can shape the final result. For readers interested in how images are made, that makes him more than a name attached to a viral or charming series; he is a maker working through a specific method.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Moreno Monti mainly an advertising photographer?

Yes, his studio has been active in advertising, and that background is part of how the work looks. The images tend to be controlled, polished, and concept-driven. Even when the subject is playful, the production values are those of a professional studio.

What is CHICken?

CHICken is a photographic series by Moreno Monti and Matteo Tranchellini featuring chickens posed and lit like portrait subjects. It uses the visual codes of fashion and commercial photography to make the birds appear individual and expressive. The series is known for turning a common animal into a subject of close visual attention.

Did Moreno Monti create the project alone?

No, the project is explicitly collaborative. Monti and Tranchellini have worked together for years, and the series is described as depending on their shared complicity. The final images come from that joint process rather than from a single photographer working alone.