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Partner in Glam
I framed this shot fast — the kind of street moment that gives you three seconds to get it or lose it. What pulled me in wasn’t the man alone, nor the advert behind him. It was the convergence. His physical presence, heavy and brooding, intersecting perfectly with the oversized face of the model. Two expressions, one contemplative, one seductive, unintentionally in conversation. The poster reads Partner in glam. A marketing line, forgettable in most contexts. But set against this man, seated in shadow, caught mid-thought, it takes on irony. Or honesty. Depends how you read it. Technically, the photo leans hard into contrast. Shot in direct sunlight, the shadows…
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Processing DSLR-digitized film with and without Pentax K-1 Monochrome Custom Image profile
Digital Camera Utility 5.0 is a pain to use on a Mac with Monterey. It is slow and laggy. Its only use is to get the photo as shot, with the custom image profiles embedded in a K-1 (and other recent Pentax DSLRs), and export it as a 16-bit tiff for further processing.One might wonder, however, whether editing a RAW file without going through the DCU —and thus losing the custom image profile— would produce lower quality results. We are about to find out.The test is quite demanding, as it starts with a shot from an Ilford SP2 Super 400 (note: this is not a true B&W film, as it…
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A Frame Within a Frame Within a Frame
The irony didn’t hit me until I developed the roll—an expired Ilford XP2 Super 400 that had been lounging at the bottom of a drawer for years. Shot with a Voigtländer Bessa R2 paired with the Nokton 35mm f/1.4, this image is as much a meditation on layers as it is a commentary on isolation. What initially looked like an ordinary street shot—girl on a call, perched on a windowsill—turned out to be a trifecta of enclosures: her physical pose wrapped in posture and winter clothing, set within the architecture of the window, itself encased in the framing of the building. Beyond, the city reflects itself, ghostlike, on the glass—another…
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Stadio Olimpico, seen from Tribuna Monte Mario
The Stadio Olimpico is not an easy subject to photograph, especially when seen from the lofty and privileged perch of the Tribuna Monte Mario. The vantage point offers grandeur, but grandeur doesn’t always translate easily into pixels—especially under the kind of merciless lighting that the stadium seems to favour at night. From this spot, the sweeping geometry of the roof dominates the composition. Its repeating, honeycomb-like pattern glows under the sodium vapour lights, casting a heavy golden hue that floods the upper half of the frame. Below, the seating—empty and rendered in cool blues—acts as a counterweight, both in tone and texture. The effect is a split visual dialogue between…
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Red Fan
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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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Get Ready, Set, Go
I’ve always enjoyed the way a single moment in the street can hold multiple narratives at once. In this frame, taken in Piazza Venezia with the Vittoriano looming behind, the cyclist seems caught between pause and motion — a split-second where the decision to push forward hasn’t yet been made. The backlighting was a gamble. Shooting into the sun with the Fuji X-T3 and the XF 16-80 meant dealing with inevitable flare, lowered contrast, and the risk of losing detail in the shadows. But I wanted that shaft of light breaking through, almost theatrical in how it picks out the rider against the cobblestones. Exposure was a compromise: holding the…
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Dark Cloud Over San Pietro
The tension wasn’t subtle. I framed this on a humid Roman afternoon, the kind where the air sticks and light flattens the facades. At the vanishing point: San Pietro, serene and untouchable, a facade that’s absorbed centuries of ceremony and conflict. But in the foreground—armoured steel, automatic rifles, and red-striped barricades—modern anxieties assert themselves. This is what occupation looks like when dressed as precaution. The symmetry of the shot exaggerates the contrast. The axis from the dome to the vehicle is mathematically clean, unnerving in its balance. You can’t not look down the middle, and once your eyes reach the Iveco Lince, you realise you’re not a tourist anymore. You’re…
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Technological Memento
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Deadly Bored
Once again, the meaning of this picture is counter intuitive and “made up” by the composition. The scene is seen from the perspective of the mannequin: at the end of a hard day spent sitting on the street-front, it (or he?) looks deadly bored and tries to kill the time before the shop closes by casually looking at the next passerby. The directional effect (from the mannequin to the passerby) is achieved by the diagonal connecting the tip of the hat, the feet of the mannequin and the cast of the shadow. Taken as a whole, these elements drive the eye from the mannequin to the persons and not vice-versa.
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A Virtual Glance Dance
The essence of this photo is all in the glances of the protagonists. The man looks at the woman, the woman looks at the luxury car. The essence of this photo is all in the glances of the protagonists. The man looks at the woman, and the woman looks at the luxury car. It is this subtle game of glances that tells a story and turns the photography from a casual picture into something worth seeing. Once again, it is not relevant whether the people portrayed are actually involved in the “glance dance”, as what matters is the image to convey the meaning created by the overall result. This confirms…
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When Tilted Photos Work
Tilted photos are very challenging to take. It is easy to break the composition, lose an essential part of the scene, or take a bad picture. Furthermore, making sense out of a diagonal orientation with a ratio that is not square (Hasselblad people, I can hear you loud and clear!) adds layers of difficulties. As counterintuitive as it might look, this photo taken in a “normal” orientation would have lost all its visual impact.
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Good Plan, Poor Execution
The idea behind the composition is entirely correct. The mannequins and the girl form a triangle, as does the direction of the stares, conveying both a sense of symmetry and counterposing the liveness of a human being to the puppets’ lack of. A poor execution, though, led to the mannequins’ head cut, turning a visually appealing photography into a meaningless shot.
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Light as Meaning Shifter
The original idea behind this picture was to match the emptiness of the shop with the facelessness of the mannequin posing as a store clerk, to convey a general feeling of depersonalization. Unfortunately, the big lightblot represented by the poster close to the mannequin catches the observer’s attention and reduce the effectiveness of the composition. Instead of connecting the mannequin with the internal part of the store thus making sense of the whole picture, the eye just “sees” an ad poster.
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Photopanning in Rome
Photo panning is an art in itself and – when adequately practised – is able to deliver a stunning visual experience. In this picture (that has not been altered but for contrast and clarity) the overall experience reminds the Impressionism aesthetics.
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Keep Out!
This photo conveys a message of “rejection”: first, a security guard who blocks access to the jewellery and then a signal of a prohibition of access reinforces the concept, thanks to a composition that guides the eye to a diagonal that goes from the bottom to the top, from left to right. Obviously, there is nothing “true” about all this because the overall result is the result of the organization of the spaces and the management of the perspective that allow connecting semantically elements that, in reality, have no relationship between them. It would have been enough to shoot from a different angle – or not juxtapose the security guard…
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Beer or Spritz?
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Fast Drivers in Via del Tritone
Via del Tritone at night has a way of compressing time. Standing at the curb, I could feel the pulse of the city—headlights cutting through the darkness, scooters weaving between lanes, the chatter of pedestrians briefly audible before being swallowed by the traffic. I set out to capture that restless energy, the kind that makes you feel Rome isn’t an ancient city at all, but something entirely modern, alive and impatient. The shot hinges on motion blur. A slower shutter allowed the black car in the foreground to smear into streaks of light and shadow, while the scooters retained just enough form to remain identifiable. This contrast between sharp architectural…
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A Priest Walking Through the Graffiti Streets
I took this photograph on a narrow cobbled street, where the encounter was fleeting. The priest moved with determination, his robes flowing around him, his beard caught in mid-sway. The background of tagged walls and worn stone contrasted sharply with his presence, layering a sense of tension between the sacred and the profane, tradition and modern neglect. Compositionally, the image relies on that juxtaposition. I framed him walking into the picture, leaving space in front to suggest motion. The graffiti and rough textures anchor the scene in the urban present, while his attire evokes a continuity that feels almost timeless. That clash is where the strength of the image lies:…
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Comarketing
Two adjacent shop windows that seem, unintentionally, to speak to each other. On the left, rare books and old prints rest under soft light, their pages worn and yellowed. On the right, a brightly lit glass case displays modern eyewear, polished and reflective, marketed with sleek precision. A drainpipe slices the frame in two, acting as a border between past and present, knowledge and fashion, permanence and trend. Technically, the image holds together through contrast. The exposure balances the dim warmth of the books with the cooler, artificial light of the glasses’ display. Reflections in the glass add layers, hinting at street life beyond the frame. The sharpness allows textures…
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What’s the Time?
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Garbage As Usual – Pantheon’s Nearby
Rome has an unrivalled way of holding beauty and decay in the same frame, and this street is no exception. The cobblestones, slick from a recent rain, mirror the ochre façades and Renaissance windows in a way that almost disguises the litter piled quietly along the curb. Almost. A man in a crisp shirt walks down the centre, back straight, seemingly immune to the refuse that flanks his path. It’s not that he doesn’t see it—it’s that he’s learned to live with it, as many Romans have. On the right, another figure leans against a doorway, absorbed in his phone, framed by stacked crates and plastic bags. Life continues unbothered.…
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School of Mathematics@Sapienza University of Rome
I composed this shot knowing it would live or die by its symmetry. The rationality of the architecture demanded nothing less. Sapienza’s School of Mathematics sits like a theorem etched in stone—precise, functional, stripped of excess. Guido Castelnuovo’s name anchors the frame, a reminder that mathematics is not only numbers, but legacy. The format is tight, frontal, and unforgiving. Every vertical and horizontal line had to be clean. A small tilt would’ve betrayed the sense of order. I waited for the man to step into the doorway—not to animate the structure, but to punctuate it. His relaxed stance, paper in hand, slightly breaks the formalism of the façade. A human…
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An Athlete@Stadio Marmi, Rome
