The book is born from the desire to tell the story of a place that remains authentic, where nature is still the central protagonist and time moves at a slower pace—a land to explore with curiosity and respect, guided by wonder.
Stretched between two seas, the long, thin peninsula of Baja California is one of America's best-kept secrets. Little known and almost uninhabited, Baja is a succession of breathtaking landscapes: centuries-old cactus forests, mountains that fall steeply to the sea, deserted beaches lapped by turquoise waters, coral reefs animated by an amazing variety of marine life, of ancient missions and prehistoric cave paintings, of starry skies amongst the clearest on our planet.
Here you can approach whales that migrate for thousands of miles, swim with sea lions in crystal clear waters, lose yourself in the silence of the desert, or find yourself the center of attention in a hospitable little fishing village.
Stefano Frontini was born in Rome in 1970. He has lived in Rome, Milan, Vienna, Dubai, and Cuernavaca, Mexico. Since 2010, he has lived in San José del Cabo, in the extreme southern tip of Baja California. A passionate naturalist, scholar, hiker, sailor, and diver, he has visited more than fifty countries on exploratory trips, many of them solo.
In Baja California, he has organized and led documentary expeditions on behalf of the National Geographic Society of London, the National Audubon Ornithology Society of San Diego, and the Faculty of Geology of Columbia University in New York. He has accompanied many other Italian and foreign photographers and documentary filmmakers to the most fascinating places on the peninsula. He is considered the Italian who knows the peninsula best throughout its entire history, both above and below the sea.
Born in 1968, the son of an artist, Giovanni Simeone studied photography in Milan, where he began contributing to
Bell'Italia magazine from its very first issue. In the early 1990s, he moved to Germany to work for a photo agency, then spent nearly three years traveling the world before settling in Paris.
There, he started an exclusive collaboration with Le Figaro, producing more than fifty feature stories. During frequent trips back to Italy, he founded Simephoto (www.simephoto.com), a photography agency specializing in travel and landscape imagery. Thirty years later, Simephoto brings together around fifty of Europe's top photographers and is recognized as a leading agency in the field.
Their portfolio includes clients such as National Geographic Traveler, Le Figaro, Outside, Geo Germany, Stern, la Repubblica, The Sunday Times, and The Guardian, as well as major international publishers, including Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, and Fodor's.
In 2011, Simephoto launched its own publishing house, Simebooks, with photography at the heart of every project. As an author, Giovanni Simeone has published Not Food for Old Men (2015) and Los Angeles Cocktails (2017). Forthcoming titles include Baja California Peninsula (as photo editor) and Los Angeles (2025).
Simebooks releases about a dozen new titles each year, with a strong focus on promoting local culture and landscapes through unique and original photographic campaigns.
