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It’s always the right time
… to light a cigar.
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Alive Or Not?
It’s a fraction of a gesture—half a figure, half a scene, the rest left to suggestion. The photograph wasn’t staged; I caught it walking past a mirrored office entrance. A man stood statue-still in the morning light, the crisp shirt collar slightly rumpled, his cardigan misaligned, tie pulled just a bit too tight. And in his hand, a cigarette—not lit, not smoked, merely held. Suspended. That detail alone tilted the entire scene into ambiguity. Technically, the image relies heavily on contrast—natural, unforgiving light from the left collides with deep shadows on the right. The tonal division reinforces the emotional ambivalence. It’s clean, yes, but harsh. The edges of the shirt…
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The Ghost
There’s an almost cinematic eeriness to this image, as if the subject has just stepped out of one reality and into another. The woman, her red hair catching the muted afternoon light, stands mid-pavement with her back partially turned. Her black gloves, long coat, and still posture evoke a figure from another era — an apparition caught in a modern street. The muted colours of the cars and buildings behind her only serve to make her presence more striking. From a compositional standpoint, the frame is well balanced. The subject occupies the vertical centre-left, her figure breaking the dominant horizontals of the street and architecture. The crossing lines of the…
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A lighter
…left for somebody to come, or hidden by someone who just left?
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Hard work
I took this photograph on a blisteringly hot summer day, the sort of day when the air seems to shimmer and the beach hums with the sounds of leisure — waves, laughter, and the distant hum of radios. But while most people lounged under neat rows of parasols, there was this man, moving with quiet determination, his back to the sea. The scene was visually irresistible: the repeating pattern of red and orange parasols receding into the distance, the bright blue rescue boat and the vivid plastic sunshades forming an almost painterly composition. The man, central in the frame, breaks the symmetry. His white shirt catches the light, contrasting sharply…
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Shooting the Shooter…
…
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Head-Dresser
A market stall at first glance, and yet, a surreal composition unfolds. Plastic mannequin heads rise from wooden sticks, lined up with aloof dignity, each adorned with scarves and hats meant to lure the hurried passer-by. They stare silently into space, held aloft like modern-day trophies, eerily anthropomorphic yet stubbornly artificial. The display isn’t just for commerce—it’s unintentional theatre. The pun in the title Head-dresser plays cleverly on the expected hairdresser. But instead of grooming the living, this stall ‘dresses’ the disembodied, the ornamental. These mannequins are not being styled—they are the style, repurposed vessels for fashion’s utilitarian need. And to the side, a woman walks past in winter garb, seemingly unaware of…
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Multitasking
This frame is one of those candid catches where the absurd quietly sits inside the ordinary. Two men, mid-meal, are absorbed in their respective worlds: the one in the centre toggling between a phone call and a glass of wine, the other leaning forward in conversation. The table is cluttered with the civilised chaos of lunch — sparkling water, empty glasses awaiting purpose, a scattering of breadsticks. The composition is built almost like a play: the seated figures as protagonists, the window behind them acting as both set and light source. That window, however, is a double-edged sword. The strong backlight pushed the dynamic range to its limit, forcing me…
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The Businessman…
Restless, waiting for the last flight to come back home.
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Kudos to Ricoh
I lost the external plastic ring covering the electronic contacts of my Ricoh GR Digital III. After an unsuccessful quest around the Net to find a spare part, as last hope (or desperate move) I sent a mail to Ricoh customer support asking where to find a replacement. To my enormous surprise, they answered fast and, since the part is not for sale as such, they offered to send it nevertheless. THIS is customer care. Kudos to you, Ricoh. You gained a customer and a supporter.
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Who Dares Wins
I took this photograph on a grey, wind-bitten afternoon when the sea felt restless and the light had flattened into steel. What caught my attention wasn’t the surf but the contradiction: a warning sign standing firm in the sand, and a man walking past it as if it didn’t exist. He held a turquoise umbrella, not open but swinging at his side — a quiet rebellion against both weather and authority. The tension between rule and gesture made the image. The sign, reading Attenzione – Pericolo. Divieto di attraversamento / Scavalcamento / Transito, is bureaucratic, absolute. Yet the man ignores it, tracing his own path along the forbidden shore. It…
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Impatience
In a hurry, while somebody else is late…
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Generations
Generation after generation, the passion for the photography always lasts.
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Waiting To Board
I found this scene along a neglected stretch of riverbank—nothing curated, nothing arranged. A broken chair, its straw seat long unravelled, faced a decaying boat tethered loosely to the shore. They looked like they belonged to each other, equally abandoned, equally patient. The title came instantly. Not poetic, just accurate: Waiting to Board. The composition rests on tension—foreground versus background, texture versus reflection. The rope cuts a diagonal across the frame, literally tying the objects together. The chair leans slightly left, softened by rot and time, while the boat points right, cracked paint peeling toward the water. Neither is in motion, yet the whole image feels held in anticipation. Technically,…
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Opposites
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Busy (again)
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A perfect match
You don’t pose the street. You chase it — and sometimes, if your reflexes are fast enough, you catch it. In this image, it happened in a split second. A man sat reading the newspaper at a café table. For the briefest of moments, he held it in such a way that his own profile aligned perfectly with the image printed on the page — a fashion ad, a male model in a similar pose, eyes half in shadow, fingers near the mouth. Two men, one real, one imagined, locked in a mirrored gesture of casual confidence. Then it was gone. That’s the essence of street photography: the unrepeatable alignment…
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An outdoor theatre?
… no, just two friends debating vigorously.
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The Odd Couple
This shot came together almost accidentally. I had been tracking the pigeons on the sand, their erratic movements making them elusive subjects, when the man entered the frame and sat down. His stillness was in complete contrast to their nervous pacing — two worlds side by side, sharing the same strip of beach without truly interacting. From a compositional point of view, the layering works: foreground sand, mid-ground human subject, and the blurred stretch of sea behind him. The diagonals created by the man’s posture and the birds’ orientation give the image a subtle sense of direction, even though nothing dramatic is happening. It’s quiet, almost muted in mood. Technically,…
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A Missed Pricetag?
This frame was taken in the heart of a southern Italian city where IKEA briefly turned the central square into a showroom of absurd proportions. A towering yellow Klippan sofa and a monolithic orange bookcase stood awkwardly monumental, surrounded by the iconography of price tags and corporate identity. At first glance, the scene could pass as whimsical urban installation. But the more I looked through the viewfinder, the more it began to speak a different language — one of quiet irony. The man in uniform, arms crossed, positioned centre-right, is what holds this image together. His stillness is incongruent with the playful intent of the installation. He isn’t enjoying the…
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An Abandoned Book…
When I came across this scene, it struck me immediately as a still-life already composed by chance. There, on the coarse, sun-warmed pavement of a dock, lay a copy of Il Marchese di Villemer, its painted cover portrait staring off to the right with aristocratic detachment. A torn scrap of red foil—perhaps once wrapping for a sweet—sat nearby, an almost absurd counterpoint to the book’s refined image. From a compositional standpoint, the photograph is anchored by the bold horizontal yellow line running across the frame. This not only divides the image but also provides a visual base upon which the book rests. The warm tones of the line complement the…
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Tough Enough
Winter light in Rome has a particular sharpness to it—crisp, but never cruel. I took this frame on one of those days when the air was cool enough to see your breath, yet the sun still carried the weight of the Mediterranean. The man in the foreground walked past with the easy stride of someone immune to the season. Sleeveless, tanned, a newspaper in hand—he looked more like August than January. The scene unfolded quickly. The scooter-lined curb, the idling bus, and the kiosk stacked high with papers gave the photograph its Roman DNA. The cluttered street corner made for a textured backdrop, but compositionally I placed him just off-centre,…
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Quis Custodiet…
I photographed these two men standing guard outside a government building, their uniforms marking the distinction between routine policing and ceremonial presence. The man on the left, in standard attire, leans casually, his stance relaxed. The man on the right, draped in a cape and holding a sword, maintains rigidity, his posture ceremonial, as though embodying an institution rather than an individual. Compositionally, I framed them against the imposing stone architecture, the vertical columns echoing the upright form of the ceremonial guard. The iron gate behind them adds depth and formality, while the shadows creeping into the arch contrast with the brightness of the façade. The pairing of the two…
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Killing Santa? Really?
This image came out of one of those moments when absurdity and bureaucracy collide so neatly you’d think it was staged. But it wasn’t. A plastic Santa Claus, mid-climb on a balcony railing, hangs over a military facility—camouflage netting, barred windows, and a glaring yellow sign that reads ZONA MILITARE – DIVIETO DI ACCESSO – SORVEGLIANZA ARMATA (Military Zone – No Access – Armed Surveillance). The juxtaposition is so stark, it borders on the surreal. I composed the frame tightly to maximise that tension. Everything sits on verticals: the iron bars, the camouflage mesh, the uniformity of the railing. Against this grid, Santa—soft, cartoonish, deliberately naive—becomes a kind of visual…
