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Aren’t Tapas Spanish?
Wandering through Venice, I came across this signboard outside a small eatery, its hand-painted letters enthusiastically proclaiming Cicchetti – Typical Venetian Food – Tapas. The first two lines make perfect sense: cicchetti are indeed a hallmark of Venetian gastronomy, those small, flavourful bites served in bàcari across the city. But then comes the curious third line: Tapas. A word so rooted in Spanish culinary identity that seeing it coupled with “typical Venetian” is enough to raise an eyebrow — and perhaps a smile. From a photographic perspective, the image is a straightforward yet effective piece of documentary work. The sign is centred and fills the frame, allowing the viewer to…
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Mediterranean Games 2009
The cover image distills the Mediterranean Games 2009 into a single, decisive moment. Two judokas are locked in the opening clinch, bodies pressed forward, balance and leverage in a delicate contest. The Italian athlete’s gi dominates the frame—white fabric, bold blue “ITA” lettering, the name Frezza stitched above. Behind, the blurred figure of the opponent fades into a wash of deep blue, the background dissolved into the anonymity of the crowd and banners. It’s an image that works not by showing the entirety of the sport, but by narrowing the lens to the moment of contact. You can almost feel the strain in the forearms, the push of shoulders, the…
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Hi-Tech Temptation
The contrast was immediate and irresistible — two Buddhist monks, their robes a saturated blaze of orange, standing in front of a shop window brimming with the shiny clutter of modern consumerism. The scene unfolded in Venice, a city that thrives on paradoxes, and the colour clash alone could have carried the frame. But the real intrigue came from the posture of the two figures: one more open, almost leaning toward the display, the other turned slightly away, as if holding a polite distance from the pull of it all. Technically, the shot benefits from the light that bounces generously along Venetian streets. It’s a soft daylight, diffused just enough…
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Hey Mister!
Shot mid-morning in hard light, narrow Venetian alley, high pedestrian flow. The frame snapped into place by instinct—the older tourist in the foreground, the younger porter directly behind, moving toward the same vanishing point. No interaction between them, yet the composition forces a silent narrative: one leading, the other following, as if engaged in negotiation. They weren’t. Framing was tight but deliberate. I stepped back half a metre to let the porter’s hand, cart, and stance fall into line with the man’s shoulder. Their postures echo: left arm bent, forward step, gaze off-frame. Depth compresses them, flattening the spatial truth into a compositional fiction. The scene holds three depths: chalkboard…
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Different Loads
I’ve always been fascinated by how the street can arrange itself into small, unplanned narratives. Here, the frame catches two distinct burdens: a man in the foreground carrying a large, wrapped package clasped tightly in his arms, and another, further back, wheeling a suitcase with the ease of modern travel. Between them, a handful of passers-by slip through the scene, each in their own rhythm. The composition benefits from a strong foreground element — the man’s folded hands over the package create both texture and a sense of intimacy. They also form a visual block that forces the eye to travel diagonally into the depth of the frame. The background…
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Which Part of “No Smoking” Got You Lost?
In the waiting hall of the local court, the walls speak louder than the people. Four separate notices, two of them screaming Vietato Fumare in different typographic voices, one barking about mobile phones, and another swathed in the formal tone of bureaucracy. It’s not so much signage as it is a visual overkill — a redundancy parade that says as much about the environment as it does about the rules themselves. I framed this shot to exaggerate the emptiness around the signs. The expanse of bare white wall creates an almost comical isolation, leaving the text to float in their own authoritative bubbles. The placement isn’t random — I kept…
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Waiting For The Patrons – 2
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Waiting For The Patrons – 1
Rows of empty tables fill the frame, each one neatly set with glasses, cutlery, and the small black silhouettes of salt and pepper shakers. The chairs—red and blue—alternate without any strict pattern, giving the scene both order and disorder at once. The repetition draws the eye deep into the image, yet the absence of people leaves it eerily still. In the background, columns rise like structural sentinels, breaking the rhythm of the tables. Behind them, white sheets hang, blocking whatever lies beyond. These barriers, makeshift and plain, add to the sense that this place is on pause—prepared for service, yet suspended in anticipation. The light is soft, diffused, and without…
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At the theater, between two scenes
I took this on instinct. The curtain was down inside, but the real theatre was unfolding on the steps. Not dramatic, not rehearsed — just a handful of people suspended in that odd in-between: not quite arriving, not quite leaving. They scattered themselves across the stairs as if cast by some unseen director. The architecture held them. A brutalist façade, cyan-oxidised and flaking like tired makeup. The symmetry of the stairs did most of the compositional work — I just centred the frame and waited. The banister slices the image vertically, anchoring the eye. One figure leans left, one right, each adjusting the balance. Technically, it’s a colour study wrapped…
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Pensive
This black-and-white image, taken along the riverside steps in Paris, captures the quiet weight of stillness against a backdrop of movement. At the centre of the frame sits a lone figure, their silhouette defined against the lighter tones of the water. They face away from the crowd, turned toward the river’s shifting surface, embodying a pause in a city otherwise in motion. CompositionThe most compelling element of this photograph is its use of leading lines. The sweeping curve of the steps pulls the eye from the lower right of the frame directly toward the seated figure, and then out toward the distant pedestrians. This arc not only structures the scene…
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Skating at Palais de Tokyo
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Under the Arc of the Seine
Paris has a way of revealing its geometry to those who care to look. This photograph, taken from the cobblestone banks of the Seine, uses the underside of a bridge as a natural proscenium arch. The frame it creates is both literal and compositional, guiding the viewer’s gaze toward the urban stage beyond. The sweep of the bridge’s curve is echoed by the concentric stone steps leading down to the water, while the horizontal layers of the background—trees, buildings, roadway—add a pleasing counterbalance to the strong arc. From a technical perspective, the choice of black and white serves the image well. Stripping away colour emphasises the interplay of lines, curves,…
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PI Room At Palais de la Découverte
Walking into the Palais de la découverte, I was expecting to find science distilled into exhibits, but not quite in the graphic, almost Pop-art punch delivered by this wall installation. Bold, oversized foam digits leap from a sterile white surface, forming the endlessly irrational sequence of π. The visual rhythm is broken strategically with occasional black numerals, pulling the eye into brief moments of disruption. Below the digits, the names — EUCLIDE, EULER, FERMAT, FOURIER — provide a calm intellectual gravity against the visual chaos above. This shot was as much about the tension between mathematics and design as it was about light and form. I framed it head-on to…
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Underground Security RA(T)P
I took this shot as these three officers from the RATP Sûreté unit passed me in a corridor of the Paris Metro. The framing was pure reflex: centre-weighted, low-angle, fast shutter. I didn’t have time to fine-tune the exposure—the lighting was flat and mixed, with harsh fluorescence above and murky shadows dragging behind. But I didn’t correct much in post either. This is a moment that benefits from its rawness. Their backs tell the whole story. The staggered stride, the swing of a baton, the compressed geometry of the underground corridor—they speak of tension, routine, and latent power. It’s not a confrontational image. The officers aren’t responding to a threat.…
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Stinky Shoes
I didn’t stage the boots. They were already there — resting, waiting, perhaps forgotten. Red leather, worn smooth at the toes, zipped and upright like sentries. The scene caught my eye not because of the shoes themselves, but because of their place within this cage of repetition: iron grille, mesh netting, and behind it all, the geometry of a city reflected in the glass. The photograph rests on layers. Foreground: a net that seems both to protect and to obscure. Midground: the wrought iron, rusted and ornate, Victorian in its stubborn elegance. Background: the shoes. And beyond them, windows reflecting windows. This multiplicity of frames becomes the structure of the…
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Access Denied
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Planetarium
The Zeiss projector at the Palais de la Découverte has an undeniable presence. It is both a piece of scientific equipment and a sculptural object, an embodiment of precision engineering turned into theatre. Under the dome’s dimmed lights, the machine sits like a mechanical deity, ready to conjure the heavens onto the curved canvas above. Photographing it was a matter of honouring its shape without reducing it to a mere technical diagram. I centred the composition to give the machine the stature it deserves, allowing its symmetrical arms and lenses to extend outward in all directions. The warm backdrop of the dome was a natural contrast to the cooler, magenta-tinted…
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Amex
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Heater
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Absence in Three Acts
Empty chairs always speak louder than full ones. These three, bolted to the floor, stare back with a kind of institutional blankness that neither welcomes nor dismisses. They simply are—efficient, expressionless, durable. I wanted to see if the geometry could carry the whole frame, and it does. The repetition, interrupted only by the slight angle of the shot and the unavoidable play of light, creates rhythm without sentiment. Shot in black and white to emphasise the chrome’s edge and the mesh’s subtle gradients, the photograph hinges on texture and symmetry. The lighting is flat, but deliberately so: no shadows, no contrast drama—just presence. These are not chairs meant for rest;…
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Floating Flower
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Home on the Range
There’s a moment—right before the shot breaks—when everything else falls away. This frame captures that exact moment. The quiet before the concussion. The balance between intent and mechanics. Taken in a professional range under full control, it documents not violence, but discipline. Focus. Precision. The brass tells its own story: just-fired casings scattered like punctuation marks on the shooter’s rhythm. The rifle rests steady on a bipod—cold, functional, ready. The shooter’s hand is not tense, but deliberate. His chain bracelet glints faintly in the sterile light, an unexpected human contrast to the black polymer and steel. This isn’t combat. It’s not theatre. It’s a place where performance meets protocol. Where…
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And Justice For All
This shot came together in complete silence — the kind of silence that only certain institutional buildings can generate. The kind made of marble, fluorescent light, and tension. I didn’t stage a thing; the geometry was already waiting for me. One man in the foreground, half-shielded by a paper, lines converging to a trio sitting far in the distance — it all felt like a scene rehearsed for a stage I just happened to walk onto. Compositionally, this image relies heavily on symmetry and recession. The central aisle, vanishing neatly into the background, draws the eye from the bold human presence up front to the barely-noticed figures in the rear…
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Desolation
I remember standing at the entrance of this narrow underpass, camera in hand, struck by the oppressive stillness. The word “desolation” seemed to settle in my mind even before I pressed the shutter. There was no movement, no sign of life, only the faint echo of my own footsteps on the tiles. The composition is built on geometry and confinement. The corridor acts like a visual funnel, guiding the eye towards the back courtyard and the blank, closed garage doors. The graffiti scrawled on both walls interrupts the symmetry just enough to add texture and a hint of human presence — though not the kind that enlivens a space. The…
