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The Chess Players’ Summer Nest
There’s a rhythm to afternoons like this. The sun heavy in the air, the shade of the arcade offering just enough relief to keep men rooted to their chairs, eyes fixed on the chequerboard battlefield. The setting is unmistakably local — a small bar spilling its life out onto the pavement, Coca-Cola chairs scarred by years of use, walls patched and peeling. Everything here is part of the game, even the hum of conversation from the tables beyond. What makes the photograph work is its layering. The first plane is the duel: two players hunched, arms folded, eyes locked on the chessboard, their bodies mirroring each other in stubborn concentration.…
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Boat Maintenance At Genova’s Porto Antico
The Porto Antico in Genoa has a way of blending the romantic with the mundane. Tourists tend to focus on the gleaming yachts, the glint of sunlight on the water, the distant hum of maritime history. I found myself drawn to something less glamorous but far more telling—a simple act of maintenance on a sailboat, captured mid-task. From my vantage point, the composition presented itself naturally. The man in the red shirt bends over the stern, his white hair almost glowing under the midday sun. In the foreground, another man, back turned to us, anchors the scene and adds depth. The large ship’s wheel to the right and the tangle…
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An Early Morning Fishing Expedition
I shot this just after sunrise. Light was low but clear, casting long shadows and warming the palette without oversaturating the sand. The three men—two pushing, one walking alongside—form a diagonal that pulls the eye from left to right, through netting, boat, and beach. The scene holds movement without blur. Every element is in transition. I framed from distance using a moderate telephoto to compress the layers—foreground vegetation, safety fencing, beach, and deep field of straw umbrellas. The shallow depth of field separates the action while still referencing the beach’s infrastructure. I let the background stay busy. It adds context, not confusion. Exposure was tricky. Highlights off the boat’s rubber…
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Mooring The Boat
I made this photograph while standing slightly above the scene, looking down as the sailor secured the mooring line. The angle was dictated not by style but by circumstance: the dock rose just enough over the water to offer a natural vantage point. I didn’t ask him to look up or alter his posture. He was intent on the work, and I preferred to remain a quiet observer.
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Waiting For A Customer To Come
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Lost In Rembrance
I made this image during an early evening walk along the Ligurian coast, at a moment when the wind had dropped, the chatter from the restaurants below had softened, and the sea had begun its slow shift to silver. The man in the frame didn’t pose or perform. He stood still, arms folded behind his back, eyes fixed somewhere beyond the horizon—somewhere private. I didn’t interrupt. The strength of this frame lies in its quiet composition. The iron railing draws the eye to the curve of the man’s posture and then out towards the water, which mirrors the diagonal of his gaze. That subtle mirroring, between the subject and the…
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The Penguin’s Feeder
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A Shadow
Shot with the Leica M9, this image is a study in discretion and the poetics of presence. The figure in the foreground is reduced to a silhouette, his back turned to the viewer, his face never revealed. He absorbs the frame. The street scene beyond—colourful, lively, and teeming with out-of-focus activity—contrasts sharply with his opaque stillness. Technically, the decision to expose for the highlights in the background rather than lifting the shadows in the foreground was intentional. I wanted the viewer to feel like an outsider—watching someone who is, himself, watching. The bokeh from the streetlamps adds texture without stealing attention, while the shallow depth of field, aided by the…
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The Godfather
There are portraits that declare themselves in full—broad poses, direct gazes, theatrical light. Then there are those, like The Godfather, that wield influence through omission. This image withholds the subject’s full face, offering only a partial profile and the language of body and gesture. The composition is tightly cropped, forcing the viewer into an intimate but controlled proximity. The jawline is set, the mouth neutral but firm; the hand rests on the chest, fingers curled in a posture that feels both protective and deliberate. The subject’s gaze, cast off-frame, hints at a private sphere of thought or authority that we are not invited to enter. Colour plays an essential role…
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On Air
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Last Check Before The Show
Photographs taken backstage – or side-stage, as in this case – carry a special tension. They are about the moment before the moment, a pause loaded with anticipation. This image captures that space exquisitely. Two women, backs to the camera, lean over a sheet of paper, lit by the same illumination that spills onto the audience beyond. It’s an intimate vantage point, yet the scene is undeniably public. The photographer’s choice of focus is telling. The women are sharp, their details – the thin strap of a black dress, the lace sleeve of a white one – rendered with care, while the audience in the background dissolves into a creamy…
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The Crew’s Rest
Before the music, before the lights, before the roar of the crowd, there is this: scaffolding, cables, flight cases, and the quiet focus of the crew. Two men sit within the skeleton of a stage in progress. One leans back on a low platform, his body turned away, hands resting loosely on his knees. The other, crouched cross-legged on the metal grid, holds a fire extinguisher’s pole with a faint, amused expression, as if catching the photographer in an unguarded moment. Around them, the geometry of the scaffolding frames the scene, a lattice of steel that will soon hold the machinery of spectacle. The city moves on in the background—shops…
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Wet Socks
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An Attentive Listener
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The Soul Of Politics
There are moments in public life when the abstractions of policy, ideology, and governance are distilled into something intensely human. The Soul of Politics captures such a moment—raw, immediate, and deeply personal. Here, the focus is not on the grand stage or the official podium, but on the energy and conviction of a single individual, set against the hum of a gathered crowd. The central figure, a woman framed mid-action with two flags in hand, dominates the image both physically and emotionally. Her posture—arm raised, face set with a determined focus—anchors the scene. The flags, their colours vivid against a muted background, slice through the frame with a visual rhythm…
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The Lost Church
There’s a peculiar stillness to places abandoned to time. This old church, half-standing and half-claimed by nature, radiates a kind of quiet defiance. The arches remain intact, elegant in their geometry, even as the roof has long given way and the nave has filled with weeds and tall grasses. When I composed the frame, I wanted to place the arches as the structural rhythm that guides the eye. The diagonal sweep from the lower right to the upper left pulls you naturally towards the surviving façade. The wild vegetation softens the geometry, adding texture and colour — greens, yellows, and browns — that contrast with the pale limestone. Technically, the…
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Once A God
Poseidon emerges from above the sign like a relic of popular imagination—muscular torso, crown, and trident, his authority now reduced to advertising. Below him, the oversized fish and bold lettering spell out his name with certainty, though the plaster figure betrays wear, paint faded and surfaces weathered. It is not divinity but decoration, a reminder of how myth survives in commerce. Composition stresses perspective: the low angle forces the viewer to look up, as if paying homage, yet the clean blue sky strips the scene of grandeur, leaving only figure and name. The fish’s body stretches across the lower frame as a pedestal, while Poseidon’s arms, frozen mid-gesture, create diagonals…
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Bikers
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Bent
Shot with a Nikon F3 and a 16mm fisheye, this isn’t your typical curved-sky, skateboard-in-midair kind of photo. Instead of pushing the distortion to the front of the image, I let it sneak in at the edges—just enough to bend the rules. The subject is ordinary: a coastal bridge, a pedestrian path, the usual lampposts lining a curve. But the lens pulls the whole scene inward, gives it weight and sweep, turns a flat space into something that stretches, leans, folds in on itself. I like using fisheye glass this way—not as a gimmick, not for laughs, but to see how geometry shifts when you force perspective without centring it.…
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The Shooter’s Dilemma
I took this during a routine shooting session. The man wasn’t posing. He was checking his grouping, arms crossed behind his back, body still, gaze locked forward. The target hangs silent. No smoke, no sound, just aftermath. The image is built on symmetry and distance. I framed from behind, dead-centre, letting the shooter’s back align with the silhouette’s head. They overlap in posture and scale. It’s a quiet mirroring—two figures facing off, one made of flesh, the other paper. Shot wide open at f/2.8, focus sits on the shooter’s shoulder line. The target softens just slightly—enough to retain its shape, not enough to compete. ISO at 800, shutter at 1/160s.…
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Portrait of a Perinatal Cardiologist
Salvatore Gerboni, MD, is an expert perinatal cardiologist and a great human being.
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The Street Photographer Rights In Italy. The Leaflet
Here is an easy-to-carry A4 leaflet to be used in case you are confronted by a law enforcement agent of officer that question your Street Photography activity. Legal issues apart, please remember to always be polite and to help the officer not to look goofy or ignorant (as he actually would) in front of the public. Q. Does taking people’s photography in public spaces infringes sec. 615 bis of the criminal code? A. NO. Under the Corte di cassazione ruling n. 47165/2010 outdoor there is no reasonable privacy expectation, as there is no reasonable privacy expectation in case of tacit – while non equivocal – withdrawal of this right, as…
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Just Another Times Square View
I made this photograph in 2000, standing in Times Square with a Canon film camera loaded with Portra 160. It was a different city then—louder in some ways, rougher at the edges, less polished than the LED-saturated spectacle it would later become. What interested me was not the chaos itself, but the uneasy coexistence between permanence and transience: stone and steel on one side, light and commerce on the other. The composition is deliberately vertical, almost architectural. The frame stacks elements upward rather than outward: the dense mass of midtown buildings rises on the left, while the illuminated billboards dominate the right. The Budweiser sign acts as a visual anchor,…
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A Dragon Trainer?
