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An Asian Lion Guarding an Italian Town – One Shot Story
Ofena is a small town located within the Abruzzo National Park of Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga, in Italy, Hit by the 2009 earthquake, Ofena is still struggling to recover. Life came back to its ordinary pulse thank to the inhabitants who showed strong resilience. However, wandering around these wounded places I didn’t feel inclined to take photos as I felt like I was exploiting the enduring consequences of the tragedy that hit this community.
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What Souvenirs Say About Rome (and Your Attitude Toward Life)
Rome’s souvenir shops are full of busts, plaques and other artefacts mixing the sacre and the profane —and sometimes even things that have nothing to do with the Eternal City. This make it challenging for a tourist to actually understand what he is looking at —and googling for information is not a common practice among that kind of visitors who, as Aldous Huxely brilliantly pointed out, travel without knowing exactly why they are visiting a certain place or another. Nevertheless, these souvenir displays offer an insight into some of the most fascinating aspects of Rome’s culture and history – Initially published on 35mmc.com. On the top shelf, a plaque shows Latin…
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5 Frames from our Tragic Past Shot with an iPhone 14 Pro Max
The remains captured in these photographs come from a small war museum in Orsogna, a small town in the interior of my home region, Abruzzo. In World War II Orsogna and other towns – such as Ortona, where there is a memorial for the Canadian soldiers who fell in the Moro river fierce battle – were part of the German Gustav Line. They were theatre of bloody battles and still today, wandering around with a metal detector, it is possible to find a lot of things reminding of these tragic events. This is exactly what motivated a group of local historians to search for, collect and classify as many things as possible, and finally,…
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Shooting Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA)-like Events
Historical reenactments are everywhere, and the volunteers who keep alive the memory of our past deserve our highest praise. Along with pure re-enactments, where the fate of the participants is already predetermined by history, and HEMA, where athletes compete using European weaponry and armour, there is a middle-ground discipline that is gaining momentum in Italy: Sport Reenactment – Initially published by 35mmc.com In short, SR players take part in reenactment events wearing faithful replica of the coats and arms of ancient Italian, Greek, Celtic and German tribes. But they also meet in forests and mountains to fight following a ruleset but without knowing in advance who is going to win. The…
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Three Lamposts
Sometimes the simplest subjects offer the richest visual rhythms. This photograph of three lampposts along a shaded path is a study in repetition, perspective, and the gentle irregularities that occur when human-made structures meet the slow reclamation of nature. The posts lean — not dramatically, but enough to betray years of shifting soil and seasonal wear — and that subtle tilt gives the image a quiet tension. The composition is carefully observed. The frame leads the eye from foreground to background in a gentle S-curve: the path winds left, the lampposts march back into the trees, and the play of shadow and sunlight dapples both ground and foliage. The staggered…
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Three Tires
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Still Ruling The Empire
The statue in this image has its back turned to the camera, but it commands the frame entirely. Shot in Rome, with the dome of Santi Luca e Martina on the left and the Torre delle Milizie rising in the distance, this bronze figure—likely an emperor or general—stands as if still governing the landscape before him. I didn’t photograph the face on purpose. The power of this moment lies in presence, not identity. The shot is about line, volume, and the compression of history into layers. The trunk of the umbrella pine rises behind him like a sceptre made of wood and air, while the palatial facades blend architectural periods…
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After Heat, Structure
I made this photograph handheld, late afternoon. The car was still warm. Fire had done what fire does: reduced all function to form, all value to surface. What remained was metal, glass, ash—and light. I chose a shallow angle, head-on through the front windscreen, to confront the wreckage as directly as possible. The lens was at roughly 60mm, allowing a slight compression of space. I focused on the mid-depth—the charred dashboard—so the frame reads in layers: foreground (rust and blistered bonnet), middle (molten plastic and exposed seat frames), background (burned upholstery, collapsed interior geometry). Each plane tells a different part of the story. The light was flat, which helped. No…
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The Answer is On the Wall
When I first saw this wall, I knew immediately that it had to be photographed. Not because it was particularly ornate or historically significant, but because of the simple red digits painted on its surface: 42. For anyone who’s read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, this number isn’t just a number—it’s the number, the answer to life, the universe, and everything. And yet, here it was, not in some cosmic landscape, but on a weathered patch of brick and peeling paint. From a compositional standpoint, I kept the frame tight, letting the number sit just off-centre enough to avoid perfect symmetry. The texture of the wall does as much…
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Superpila still rides…
This frame came together almost by accident. I was rummaging through a heap of obsolete electronics, mostly as a curiosity, and found myself fixated by the material fatigue of an old battery unit—branded “Superpila”—held together by deteriorating fabric tape. Time had clearly done its job: oxidation, dust, flaked paint. Yet, paradoxically, the components still looked like they could spark into life. That tension—between decay and function—is what led me to raise the camera. The shot leans heavily on texture and chaos. Compositionally, it’s tight and cramped, bordering on claustrophobic, and that’s deliberate. I wanted the viewer to feel immersed, maybe even overwhelmed, as though peering into something that’s no longer…
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Nature gets its space back…
I was drawn to the silent battle playing out on this façade. The building, once proud in its classical symmetry, has yielded to time and decay. Nature, opportunistic and patient, is reclaiming space—creeping across brick and stone, entwining itself with Corinthian capitals and shattered sills. This isn’t ruin porn; it’s a quiet negotiation between permanence and ephemerality. I shot straight on, flattening perspective to emphasise the structure’s geometry. Vertical lines matter here—the columns, the window frames, the pattern of the vines—all reinforcing the sense of a former order. Exposure was metered to protect detail in the shadows, especially behind the broken windows, while still holding colour in the overgrown foliage.…
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A (Soon) Lost Banner
This is a photograph of a sign that has clearly outlived its prime. The red background has faded and chipped, the white letters worn thin, yet the word Calzolaio — shoemaker — still points the way. The arrow to the left seems almost stubborn, insisting on a direction in a world where such trades have all but vanished from daily city life. Technically, the image is straightforward, relying on the flatness of the sign against the textured wall. The weathered surface of the plaster contrasts with the bold geometry of the lettering, while the saturated but deteriorated paint creates a visual tension between past vitality and present decay. The exposure…
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An Athlete@Stadio Marmi, Rome
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The Watchdogs
High on a crumbling brick wall, two cats hold their ground. One, a tabby, sits upright, eyes locked on the camera with the unwavering stare of an appointed sentinel. The other, black and white, looks away, uninterested in the act of vigilance, its attention claimed by something out of frame. Behind them, the backdrop tells another story: a weathered industrial wall, its whitewash worn thin, the rusted blades of an old ventilation fan frozen in their casing. Wires run haphazardly across the façade, relics of a building that has seen better days. It’s an unlikely setting for such a scene, yet the pairing of living presence and decaying architecture feels…
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Vasa’s Ghost
Photographing in museums is always a challenge — a careful dance between respecting the subject, working within strict lighting conditions, and negotiating the inevitable glass barriers. This image, taken in the Vasa Museum in Stockholm, is an excellent example of how those constraints can actually contribute to a picture’s mood rather than hinder it. The subject — a centuries-old skull — sits isolated against a dark, glittering background, its ochre tones warm against the cold, almost cosmic speckling that surrounds it. The lighting, subdued yet precise, falls in a way that enhances the contours of the cranium, the hollowed sockets, and the jagged remnants of teeth. The reflections — likely…
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A Lamp in an Old Teather
There is something quietly poetic about an object photographed in isolation, removed from its intended context yet still resonating with hints of its former life. This image — a simple floor lamp set against a timeworn, crimson theatre curtain — speaks volumes in its sparseness. The lamp, with its contemporary, almost utilitarian design, stands in stark contrast to the opulent, textured backdrop, a relic from an era when theatres embraced velvet and grandeur. From a compositional standpoint, the decision to place the lamp off-centre allows the folds and rich patina of the curtain to dominate the frame. The interplay between the deep reds, the lamp’s soft white glow, and the…
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Romeo’s Hideout
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The Last Barrell
There’s a certain poetry in objects long past their prime, and this image captures that sentiment with quiet precision. An old Q8 Oils barrel, mottled with rust and flaking paint, leans against a crumbling brick wall, its chain slack and purposeless. It feels abandoned yet still carries the weight of its former function — an industrial relic in a state of slow surrender to the elements. From a compositional standpoint, the photograph benefits from its simplicity. The barrel occupies a dominant position in the frame, slightly off-centre, drawing the viewer’s eye immediately to the texture of its surface. The chain provides a subtle vertical counterpoint to the horizontal curvature of…
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Mind The Step
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Inside The Clocktower
I made this photograph standing in the cramped, dusty heart of the clocktower, where the public face of time is reversed, fragmented, and framed by machinery. From here, the bold Roman numerals of the clock are a shadow-play against frosted glass, mirrored in a way that strips them of their usual authority. The word TREBINO—the maker’s mark—appears backwards, as if time itself had been flipped. The challenge in this shot was balance—both in composition and exposure. The brightly lit clock face risked blowing out entirely against the dim, oil-stained gears and pulleys in the foreground. I underexposed slightly to retain detail in the shadows, allowing the face to glow without…
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In Hoc Signo
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A Skull
I made this photograph in near darkness, peering through a narrow stone opening where a skull lay against the rough wall. The framing itself creates a sense of confinement: the viewer sees only what the aperture allows, a forced perspective that heightens the impact of the subject. The starkness of the skull, caught in dim light, is amplified by the deep shadows surrounding it. Technically, the image embraces its limitations. Low light produces grain and softness, yet these imperfections serve the atmosphere. The highlights on the skull’s surface are blown in places, but this uneven exposure adds to the sense of unease, as if the bone reflects light reluctantly. The…
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After the Race
It’s not the roar of engines or the scent of oil that stays with you—it’s this. Two men, backs turned, still in their Fiat overalls. The crowd has begun to blur into the night, and the adrenaline has softened into conversation. Maybe they’re swapping lap times, maybe just trading silence. I took this shot at the end of a vintage car competition. Not during the parade, not at the peak of noise and chrome, but after. When everything meaningful often happens. Their suits are creased from hours of wear, and the red stitching on the white cotton glows under the street lamps like the last ember of something freshly burned.…
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Amex
