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. This wasn’t about showcasing the lens. It was about letting it warp reality quietly. Just enough that you feel something’s off, even if you’re not sure why.

Shot on film, the grain works with the architecture. The light was harsh but even. I trusted the meter and let the shadows hold their own. You can see the graffiti on the concrete base: “Internet è come te: me mastica e mi sputa”—a line that reads like it knows it’s been seen through glass.

In digital, this might’ve felt clinical. Too sharp. Too corrected. But with the Nikon F3 and a bit of breathing room in the frame, the lens doesn’t dominate—it collaborates.

Sometimes distortion isn’t about exaggeration. It’s about tension. The sense that everything might straighten out if you just took one step back.

But I didn’t.