Andrea Monti

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  • Colour,  Daily photo,  Streets&Squares,  Winter

    The Last Journey Of An Hero of Italian Motoring

    March 7, 2021 /

    Behold, the Fiat 500. Not the modern one that’s all airbags and Bluetooth and makes you feel like a fashion blogger. No, this is the real thing. The original. The glorious, underpowered, unapologetically tinny Italian shoebox. And look at it now—strapped to the back of a truck like a pensioner wheeled out of the bingo hall for the last time. Rusted. Flat-tyred. Beaten. Magnificent. I spotted it being hauled away through a southern Italian town, and frankly, I nearly wept. This was once the car that got a nation moving. The people’s Ferrari. The automotive embodiment of an espresso shot. And now? A hunk of oxidised metal destined for the…

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    Andrea Monti

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    Parachute

    September 14, 2013

    Urgent Call

    May 15, 2017

    Floating

    February 5, 2023
  • B&W,  Beach&Shores,  Daily photo,  People

    Zombies

    March 4, 2021 /

    It was one of those winter mornings where the fog doesn’t just obscure — it swallows. Standing on the shoreline with the Nikon D610 and my trusty Nikkor 105mm f/2.5, I could barely see ten metres ahead. Figures emerged slowly from the haze, walking towards me in silence, their features lost in the grey void. The effect was unsettling enough that, reviewing the shots later, I couldn’t help but think of a scene from a low-budget horror film — the title wrote itself. Technically, this photograph is a study in embracing limitation. Autofocus in such conditions is almost pointless, and it wasn’t a problem since the lens is full-manual; I…

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    Andrea Monti

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    Snaps of a Flamenco recital…

    April 26, 2013

    The True Ironman

    March 4, 2015

    Waiting for the Justice to Arrive

    March 11, 2013
  • Beach&Shores,  Colour,  Daily photo,  People,  Winter

    Uninterested

    March 2, 2021 /

    No glance. No nod. Just two people moving through the same space, as if the other didn’t exist. This was taken on a beach that should have felt wide open, maybe even freeing—but something about the moment made it feel small, enclosed. The boy looks down at his phone. The girl walks past him, eyes fixed forward. Neither slows. Neither turns. They’re metres apart, yet orbiting separate worlds. I didn’t ask for this scene. It unfolded on its own. A brief choreography of disconnection. Their postures say enough: one drawn into a screen, the other into her own stride. There’s no hostility here—just absence. A quiet kind of loneliness, the…

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    Andrea Monti

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    When the Rubbish Basket is full…

    December 13, 2013

    Belgian Chocolate – Godiva

    November 20, 2015

    Mind The Step

    August 28, 2015
  • Bridges,  Colour,  Daily photo

    Lava Nails

    February 28, 2021 /

    The first thing that struck me when I looked at this photograph was the title — Lava Nails. It’s an evocative phrase, one that instantly conjures visions of volcanic rock cooling into jagged forms. In reality, of course, what we’re looking at is far more prosaic: rows of rusty rivets or bolts on a weathered surface. Yet, the camera has transformed the mundane into the dramatic. The composition is built on strong linear perspective. The rivets march away from the viewer, converging toward a vanishing point that lies just outside the frame’s blurred horizon. This forced depth, amplified by a shallow depth of field, isolates the tactile detail of the…

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    Andrea Monti

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    Player&Listener

    June 30, 2014

    Much Too Short a Ladder

    October 17, 2013

    A Blue Vespa

    November 3, 2014
  • Beach&Shores,  Colour,  Daily photo,  People,  Winter

    Pensive

    February 26, 2021 /

    Manual focus needs practice. This photo would have been better if I framed also the top of the cabin and focused better the person.

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    Andrea Monti

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    Kime in photography

    June 9, 2013

    Not A Rorschach Inkblot

    December 24, 2017

    Iron Gate

    May 2, 2013
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  People,  Streets&Squares,  Technique,  Winter

    A Skater

    February 23, 2021 /

    Framing the whole statue would have made this photo better. The mistake was caused by the necessity to shoot fast, the lens’ field of view and the distance between the subject and the focal plane.

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    Andrea Monti

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    Fujifilm X-Pro 2: Does It Worth It? (Lost In Via Del Corso)

    January 16, 2016

    The Gate to the Appeal

    October 10, 2021

    Money Doesn’t Smell

    April 2, 2015
  • Bridges,  Colour,  Daily photo,  Winter

    A Droplet

    February 21, 2021 /

    Sometimes the most unassuming subjects hold the greatest visual intrigue. A Droplet invites us to pause before a corroded pipe, its mouth fringed with moss and decay, and notice the minute beads of water suspended in time. The scene is humble, even neglected, yet it carries a quiet dignity — a testament to the slow, unrelenting processes of nature reclaiming the man-made. From a compositional standpoint, the photographer has made the astute decision to centre the pipe, drawing the eye directly to the mossy rim and the droplets. The shallow depth of field isolates the subject from the textured wall behind it, giving the image a pleasing three-dimensionality. The fine…

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    Andrea Monti

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    Red Beam

    October 24, 2023

    A Lamp in an Old Teather

    March 8, 2016

    Cleaning the Tabernacle

    November 26, 2022
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  Gear,  Winter

    A Rudder

    February 19, 2021 /

    Pentax K-1/smc Pentax-A 135/2,8

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    Andrea Monti

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    Now You See It…Street Juggler at a Red Light in Barcelona

    June 16, 2014

    Technogym Milan@Night

    April 3, 2022

    The Angel Maker

    February 25, 2014
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  Visual,  Winter

    A Mesh

    February 16, 2021 /

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    Andrea Monti

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    Sweet Dilemma

    November 4, 2015

    Busy (again)

    February 2, 2013

    Guess Who’s the Human?

    October 12, 2013
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  Fountains,  Visual,  Winter

    An Essay on Composition

    February 14, 2021 /

    This photograph began with geometry, but it ended up being about contradiction. Sand, marble, sea—each a distinct texture, each performing under different rules. It’s not a landscape and it’s not abstract, but it borrows from both. The diagonal lines, the flattened depth, the conflict between order and erosion—all deliberate, but not staged. I rotated the frame on purpose. The eye expects a horizon, some gravitational anchor, but here that’s denied. The marble slabs—cold, precise, quarried and arranged—seem to float or fall, depending on how you orient yourself. The band of sand running diagonally across the frame interrupts their perfection with a tactile, natural disorder: dunes formed by wind, not by…

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    Andrea Monti

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    Protected: Prova Aurum

    April 25, 2014

    Welcome in the Twilight Zone

    January 3, 2014

    A Bad Experiment

    August 26, 2016
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  Gear,  Summer,  Thoughts

    Pentax SMC-A 50/1,7 – Nikkor 50/1,4 – Summicron 50/2

    February 9, 2021 /

    The left slice is taken with a Pentax K-1 and SMC-A 50/1,7, the centre with a Nikon D750 and a Nikkor 50/1,4, the right with a Fujifilm X-T3 and a Summicron 50/2. All the cameras were at their base ISO (100 for the Pentax and Nikon, 160 with the Fujifilm), at F2 and aperture priority. The K-1 and the X-T3 photos were shot in manual focus. Only the K-1 has IBIS stabilization. The jpg is taken in Affinity by slicing each OOC RAW file without post-processing.

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    Andrea Monti

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    Portrait of a Judo Master

    November 14, 2013

    A Focused (or Sad) Violinist

    December 17, 2016

    Seeing What Isn’t There

    October 27, 2015
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  Winter

    A Lockheed C-130 Hercules

    January 31, 2021 /

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    Andrea Monti

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    Cupido’s Fall

    June 2, 2014

    Stairway to Hell

    January 9, 2022

    The Google Experiment

    February 1, 2014
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  Kite Surf,  Seasons,  Sport,  Technique,  Winter

    Kite Surfer Under Duress

    January 29, 2021 /

    The wind was already rising when I reached the beach. Grey sky, hard light, the kind of day most people read from behind a window. But the kitesurfers were already out—lines taut, boards skipping through the chop. What always strikes me about this scene isn’t just the colour of the kites against a flat sky, or the sharp angles they carve into the wind—it’s the resolve. They know what they’re getting into. The cold. The salt in their eyes. The bruises. And they do it anyway. Because this is when it’s real. That’s what drew me to raise the camera. The same drive, maybe. You don’t wait for golden hour.…

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    Andrea Monti

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    Hard Choice In Quai de la Corse

    March 21, 2014

    Abstract

    May 9, 2023

    Quis custodies

    January 26, 2013
  • Artists,  Colour,  Daily photo,  Streets&Squares,  Winter

    Busker and Covid-19

    January 26, 2021 /

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    Andrea Monti

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    Wonder… Wall

    June 8, 2021

    Lost Cellos

    August 30, 2014

    Welcome in the New (?) Year

    January 1, 2014
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  Gear,  Thoughts

    Galaxy S21 Ultra 5g. The difference between Marketing and Reality in Image Quality

    January 24, 2021 /

    To put it short, this is what you get by purchasing a Galaxy S21 Ultra 5g using the standard camera app: access to all four lenses is limited to jpg, 108megapixel resolution is limited to one lens (the one Samsung calls ‘wide’ or ‘1x’), RAW format is only availble in ‘PRO’ mode, limited to ‘ultrawide’ (0,6x) and ‘wide’ (1x), with no access to 108megpixel resolution. Samsung advertises the Galaxy S21 Ultra 5g by spinning its 108 megapixel camera. However, it does not make clear that the 108 megapixel resolution is not available in “PRO” mode, the only that records in raw. By contrast, this super resolution is available in normal…

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    Andrea Monti

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    An Essay on Light

    October 13, 2017

    At the theater, between two scenes

    June 15, 2015

    The Driver

    August 8, 2015
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  Photography

    A Fix for the Wikipedia Photos’ Copyright Scams?

    December 19, 2020 /

    As reported by Petapixel, a new form of copyright (better, ‘moral rights of author) scam hits photographer: the credit stealing on Wikipedia. In a nutshell, as everything on Wikipedia is editable, somebody started changing the photos’ ownership information from the original author to somebody else who, as Petapixel writes, get a series of ‘benefit’. As bad as it sounds, copyright protection on the Internet is a lost battle for an individual. Some services like Unsplash “turned the problem into an opportunity”. However it did not solve the issue in general terms. I’m seriously considering if just going back to a print-only sharing is a better way to handle pictures’ copyright,…

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    Andrea Monti

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    A Focused (or Sad) Violinist

    December 17, 2016

    A Standup Paddleboarder

    August 25, 2014

    PI Room At Palais de la Découverte

    June 7, 2015
  • Actors,  B&W,  Daily photo,  Gear,  PhotoCritics,  Portraits,  Technique,  Winter

    Easy To Shoot?

    December 12, 2020 /

    This picture might look “ordinary” but for the fact that I shot it with a rangefinder film camera (guess which?) during the scene change between to acts of a theatre play. Scene assistants were placing the furnitures, actors were trying to focus on their parts, there was no time (and place) to design a proper composition and set the camera. No autofocus, no real-time exposure and white-balance setting. Maybe I have been lucky capturing the match flame close to the cigar, maybe it was because of “muscle memory”, but I did it nonetheless. Problem is that I could not be sure if I succeeded until, one week later, I saw…

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    Andrea Monti

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    @ Mediterranean Beach Games 2015 – Italian Beach Volley Female Team – Laura Giombini, Giulia Toti

    October 17, 2015

    The Road To Justice

    August 31, 2014

    Suspicious

    December 2, 2014
  • Bookstores,  Colour,  Daily photo,  Tokyo

    Tsutaya Bookstore@Ginza

    December 6, 2020 /

    Photographed inside the Tsutaya Bookstore in Ginza, Tokyo, this image celebrates the bookstore as a curated stage, where books are not simply stored but presented as artefacts. The frame is dense yet controlled, offering layer upon layer of shelves, display tables, and oversized art books. The eye is immediately drawn to the centre, where a large black-and-white wildlife photograph dominates—its scale and high contrast making it the de facto anchor of the composition. CompositionThe photographer has worked with a classic layered approach. Foreground tables angle toward the viewer, drawing them deeper into the mid-ground where the hero book sits open, and then further into the background shelves which fill the…

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    Andrea Monti

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    When the day is gone

    April 4, 2013

    From Waltham to Boston

    August 4, 2023

    Autumn Leaves

    September 8, 2014
  • Bookstores,  Colour,  Daily photo,  Kyoto,  Summer

    Dai Shodo@Kyoto

    December 2, 2020 /

    Kyoto ‘s Teramachi-dori is full of suprises. Amidst shops of the most different kind and attire, booklovers can find this small gem. This is Dai-Shodo, a quiet print shop tucked into a narrow Kyoto street. I stepped inside on a grey afternoon with no particular plan. The light was soft, filtered through old windows and the hushed presence of paper. Everything in the shop seemed to lean inwards—frames, shelves, stairs—as if holding its breath in reverence. What struck me most wasn’t the prints themselves, but how they were displayed. Ukiyo-e woodblocks and vintage ephemera layered on every surface, propped rather than hung, as if caught mid-conversation. The stairway invited you up…

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    Andrea Monti

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    Drying Clothes

    March 9, 2021

    Fast Call

    December 28, 2013

    Burnt

    November 12, 2021
  • Actors,  Artists,  Colour,  Daily photo,  Reportage,  Winter

    Il barbiere di Siviglia – Don Bartolo mad at Rosina

    November 28, 2020 /

    A shot from the mise en scene of the Il Barbiere di Siviglia I did as a scene-photgrapher for the Teatro Marrucino

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    Andrea Monti

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    The Photo I Didn’t Shoot

    June 8, 2013

    The Rise of the Mutant Spiders?

    November 4, 2013

    When the day is gone

    April 4, 2013
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  Docks,  Exhibitions

    Inside the Nazario Sauro

    November 26, 2020 /

    An important piece of history of the Italian Navy, at the anchor in the Port of Genova.

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    Andrea Monti

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    Guess who’s happier?

    May 27, 2013

    Pure Joy

    May 25, 2014

    Staying Behind

    November 28, 2013
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  Marketing,  Nagoya,  Reportage,  Travels

    Nagoya’s reportage featured in The Good Life

    October 29, 2020 /

    The Good Life‘s October issue features my photoreportage of Nagoya.

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    Andrea Monti

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    Hey Mister!

    June 25, 2015

    Breakfast at Rue Brisemiche

    March 25, 2014

    Are you Sure?

    July 9, 2015
  • Daily photo,  Gear

    Fuji X-T2 records audio at 16bit/48Khz

    October 11, 2020 /

    Neither the user manual, nor the Youtube ‘experts’ tell this open secret: the X-T2 samples audio at 16bit. Although the sample rate is 48khz (a standard in video production) 16bit may not be enough to record (a minimum) professional grade audio. This is not a big deal for the rest of the humans, but If you want to ‘go pro’ or need to unleash your Gear Addiction Syndrome be advised that to have 24bit/48Khz audio you must switch to the X-T3.

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    Andrea Monti

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    Chef

    March 6, 2013

    Not A Photography Anymore

    September 22, 2014

    A Fence

    November 6, 2014
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  Doors&Windows,  Past&Relics,  Summer

    The Answer is On the Wall

    August 28, 2020 /

    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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    ContentEditor

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    Waiting to Go Home

    December 21, 2013

    One Shot Story: Behind the Fence

    January 3, 2025

    Fujifilm XF 100-400: a quick test

    January 12, 2018
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