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Hidden in Plain Sight. A Japanese Journey
It’s been about three years since I wrote this pre-foreword to this book. Although I have a lot of pictures from my various trips to Japan, organising them into a book is a challenge. The photos themselves are good enough to deserve publication. However, most of them are affected by a ‘déjà-vu’ effect. People on the subway, crowded crossroads, striking contrasts between modernity and the past, or between rural areas and highly urbanised ones, pop culture vs. business culture… no matter how hard I try, every single photo gives the feeling that someone has already done it. I am neither an anthropologist nor an expert on Japanese society, so I…
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Back On Stage (With a Damaged Lens)
Last 25 October I went back on the (back)stage of the Teatro Marrucino, one of the 29 Italy’s ‘teatri di tradizione’, for the opening of the opera season, which started with Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot which, for a number of reasons, proved to be more challenging than usual.
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David Hume Was Right On Causation… or Maybe Not
One of the core tenets of David Hume’s philosophy is the idea that causation does not exist. What we call ‘causation’ is, in fact, the result of an empirical correlation to which we ascribe ‘deterministic’ significance. This Hume’s stance has had a huge impact on philosophy, and this photo of the statue portraying him as a Greek philosoper and placed in Edinburgh’s Royal Mile proves him right beyond any reasonable doubt as demonstrated by the widely practiced prank of placing a traffic cone on the statue’s head. The way to look at it, I was told, is as an innocent, irreverent joke — a display of Scottish humour and defiance…
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The Joy of Computational Photography
Before going any further, it is important to bear in mind that even if this photo of and Alfa Romeo Spider was actually taken in September 2026, it is still five years (or four iPhone versions) old as it was taken with an iPhone 14 Pro Max. A more modern smartphone (not necessarily one made by Apple) might be more capable than this old horse. Still, this photograph is an interesting example of the difference between ‘real’ and computational photography.
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This is a stadium, not a correctional facility
This is how the access point to a stadium has changed over time. From a place where people gather to have fun enjoying the performances of the soccer players, it has now been morphed into something more akin to a correctional facility. I have witnessed this transformation first-hand, having coached a small team of javelin, shot put, discus and hammer throwers here since 1992. Year after year, the day after the Sunday match, when the stadium was made available again for track and field training, I saw the premises looking more and more like an urban riot zone and less and less like a place to prove oneself in various…
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Three Shots in Franco Summa’s Studio
Franco Summa (1938-2020) was an Italian architect and artist born in Pescara, Italy, where he realised most of his artistic vision. Summa’s works have been showcased in two Biennale di Venezia (1976 and 1978) and many other locations, in Italy and abroad, and are now preserved by a foundation in his name, based in his studio —now officially acknowledged by the Ministry of culture as a Casa-Museo (Home-Museum)— where I shot these photos.
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Which Photo Did I Shoot?
Post-processing — and cropping, in particular — is one of the most discussed topics in photography. The often heated discussions involve ‘purists’ — who claim that a photo should not be altered but for miminal exposure, highlights and other similar tweaking — and ‘artists’ whose tenet is that only the final result matters. In principle, I think that both sides have a point. A photo taken by a journalist should reflect ‘reality’, so it should not be composed and/or edited to tell a different story. By contrast, a photo whose goal is to tell a story should not be subject to such constraints and the photographer should not be blamed…
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A flamenco virtuoso: Daniele Bonaviri
This is another photo I took at the same concert where I also photographed the accordion and violin duo about that I wrote about in my previous post and in this case, too, I have made the same mistake of caring more about photography than the music. This shot features Daniele Bonaviri, one of Italy’s most talented flamenco tocaores, opening the second part of the concert. He played in trio with another flamenco guitarist, Monica De Luca and Stefano Rapone, a classic guitar player. Taking this one has more been challenging than shooting the photo of the two musicians who played in the first part of the concert. Classical and,…
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The battle of the accordion and the violin
Feeling music performed live is a unique experience that reconnects us with our primal self, the one that lived in communities where music was part of rituals and marked the key moments in the life of a group. This is why I am a firm believer that people shouldn’t take photos during concerts — unless it for professional reasons — as it breaks the emotional involvement and the profound connection with the musicians.I am, therefore, deeply annoyed by the myriad of smartphones and tablet raised above heads to (poorly) capture the performances, obstructing the view of those seated behind. Then, on a late July evening, I realised that I was…
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My Photos, My Work
Recently I was supposed to cover a concert by a fairly well-known American musician for a magazine I work for. However, I eventually chose not to.
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On Insincerity
This is a rant. It was caused by the umpteenth self-promotional, vertically shot from above video made toting a smartphone, in which, after the hideous opening — ‘hey guys’ — the main, and only, character promotes a personal achievement while pretending merely to ‘share a — God forbid — thought’. I usually try to be factual in my writing, stating my case in a clear and concise manner, always focusing on the merits of an issue and never blaming a person or a category. But.
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When Faith Is Gone
Few social habits rely more heavily on the embodiment of symbols to convey a message than religion —or religious beliefs. It doesn’t matter what faith one believes in, or if one believes in a faith at all. The power of the embodied gods —whether in their appearance or in abstract forms— elicits a reaction that doesn’t come from the prefrontal cortex. Indeed, projecting personal feelings or worldviews onto an object is not peculiar to religion. However, there is a substantial difference between worshipping a branded car or the uniform of a football club and a symbol that reminds us of the inevitability of our final journey. In fact, Italy is…
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Let the Party Started
2 June is Italian Republic Day. The official ritual follows its usual order: the laying of a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, followed by the military parade along Via dei Fori Imperiali, near the Colosseum. This year, however, the celebrations will also include a familiar exercise in civic spectacle: the predictable procession of distinguished figures from sport, the arts, and culture, assembled to give ceremony the appearance of public emotion. The chosen location is the esplanade of the Quirinale, the seat of the Presidency of the Republic, where a large temporary stage is being built, partly obscuring the Presidential building. In the background are the multicolor patches…
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The Next Emperor of Foro Italico
Late afternoon in Rome in mid-May. The Foro Italico hosts the Italian Open, where the gotha of the international tennis entertains the audience, while Piazza del Popolo a court where people are given, for free, access to pre-qualification matches, champions’ training sessions and exhibitions. The stars have not yet come out and the champions have not left their hotels, so in the meantime, young athletes are training in the hope that one day they will become the next emperors of Rome themselves.
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I Don’t Get It
This is the ad for an upcoming live concert of Zucchero ‘Sugar’ Fornaciari, a well-known Italian pop musician famous for his loosely blues-inspired music. Having been on stage for decades, Fornaciari is no amateur. I would therefore expect him to pay as much attention to his personal image as he does to his music. This is why I can’t understand why he would allow such a poor-quality poster to be used to promote his tour. The Fender Telecaster guitar, or rather a guitar resembling a Fender Telecaster, is poorly rendered — perhaps even by an AI. The headstock is completely wrong — it looks like it actually belongs to a Strat —…
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A Missed Opportunity
Seen from the outside the scene was too perfect to be true. A truck stuck in a narrow street near Trevi’s Fountain, in Rome, trying to negotiate its way out, and the ad on the backdoor claiming that ‘sometimes being bottled is a pleasure’ —in Italian, ‘bottled’ is also a synonym for ‘stuck’ or ‘trapped’. This is what defines ‘the moment’: the ability to recognise a peculiar combination of shapes, light and meaning that gives rise to unique photography. Unfortunately, or better, because of my poor composition, I failed to convey the double entendre I meant to capture with this photo. In fact, it did not include the left part of the…
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A Juggler in Bruxelles
Bruxelles, late afternoon of a spring day. The Gare du Midi is just a few hundred metres away. The traffic flows dully, green is a go, red is a stop. Cars halt at pedestrian crossings when someone approaches. Nobody tries to go through the junction stealing the few fractions of a second between the lights. The only moment of life —or chaos to some— in this ordinary end of an ordinary day equal to countless others in the past and future, is a street performer: a juggler trying to earn a few euros by showing off his prowness at bouncing a soccer ball. Sometimes he indulges too long on his…
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Even Venice Is Powerless Against A Smartphone
Taking meaningful photos in Venice is quite challenging because the strong déjà vu effect can blind you to the city’s beauty. I’m not talking about the myriad selfie-taking tourists who want to take home — or publish on their social media profiles — a small part of the city’s soul. They are not expected to understand even the fundamentals of photography, and they don’t actually need this knowledge to achieve their goal. I have no problem with that. People with ‘heavy calibre’, though, are a different matter. If they’re not going to walk around with massive bodies and lenses just for show, they should at least know a thing or…
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Why Writing About Photography Matters (or: The Importance of Re-inventing the Wheel)
This is the second of my series of short essays on photography. The title might sounds like a pre-emptive justification for clogging the Internet with yet another personal babbling about what photography is supposed to be, how photos should be taken, and so on. Actually, indeed, if one changes the names accordingly in T.S. Eliot’s quote (Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them. There is no third) it become clear that there is little left to say about photography (with the exception of technical reports on cameras and lenses’ arcane features or performance essentially part of the industry marketing spins.) So, where is the point in keeping on writing…
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After the Rain
In the early days of April a few days of heavy rain were all that lasted to make the river Pescara, in the Abruzzo region of Italy, rise up to the limit of its banks. The raise was not significant, just enough to make the water quietly flow on the adjacent land. Still it caused problem and inconvenience for the boats that were small enough to be lift or submerged by the water. I am no expert in fluid or civil engineering nor do I hold extreme views on environmental preservation. Still, I can’t stop thinking about the possible correlation between a poor set of choices such as reducing the…
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Photography Does Not Exist (Until the Eye Makes It)
Foreword This post is the first of a series meant to organise in a logical and structured corpus the ideas collected in this blog throughout years of taking photos in various environments. Introduction A preliminary misunderstanding that should be addressed immediately is that a photography does not exist per se. The photograph begins only when the eye intervenes—when it selects, isolates, and organises a continuous visual field indifferent, in itself, to interpretation. This means that an image is not discovered but constructed, and this construction may even fail, as when a narrative is imposed that later proves to be incorrect. From the outset, therefore, photography must be understood as an…
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MARTian Stairs
The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto —MART, in short— is a place that definitely worth a visit, should you be traveling across the Trentino-Alto Adige region of Italy. Its main facility, an architectural masterpiece in itself, is located in Rovereto, a small town about half an hour (by car) from Trento. Unlike many small, old Italian towns, which often only have one main attraction, such as a monument, castle or nobleman’s palace, Rovereto is different. The town itself is an attraction, as it was the place that Fortunato Depero — one of the giants of ‘Second Futurism’ — made its centre of gravity, by opening…
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A Knitting Shop in Rovereto
During a casual walk in Rovereto, a lovely town in the Trento province, I stumbled upon a knitting shop. The display was full of bags and other items for sale, only, it was not a just a shop, but an actual factory where a the craftman was working on his weaving loom. In an age where mass production is the norm, luxury is often equated with displaying a logo rather than enjoying a product’s quality, it is almost hypnotic to witness the transformation of raw materials into useful and attractive items through human ingenuity. So, after spending a few minutes observing how the individual threads were being woven into a…
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The Sorceress
This is a photo taken from the reportage of an actors’ collective’s ‘opera prima’. This time, the venue was a smaller theatre than those I usually work in. This meant there was less room for movement and only a few limited angles from which to take the shots. As a result, I mainly framed shots from below stage level, with very little freedom to move laterally. This forced me to rely almost entirely on timing rather than geometry. I therefore tried to draw the viewer into an uneasy proximity with the figure. This enabled me to focus on capturing expressions to reveal the character’s psychology.
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Breaking Through
This is one of the photos I took while courtside at a women’s handball match between the Italian and Bosnian national teams. I was there as part of the sports photography seminar I run at the university where I also teach sports law. This is why I had to produce teaching materials using a number of pieces of equipment and techniques, ranging from prefocusing with full manual lenses to fast target acquisition and single shot.
