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Seeing What Isn’t There
There’s no I Ching here. No coins. No symbols. No prophecy. And yet. This photo isn’t about what’s captured by the lens — it’s about what the mind decides is there. Three indistinct shadows above. Two sets of parallel lines below. That’s all. And yet, somewhere between them, something ancient is conjured. A trigram. A casting. A flipped coin in mid-air. Logic says: it’s a vent and the shadows of round objects on a backlit surface. But vision isn’t logic. It’s memory, pattern, story — all stitched together before you’re even aware you’re looking. Photography is often obsessed with truth. With freezing the real. But sometimes the most compelling images…
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@ Mediterranean Beach Games 2015 – Italian Female Rowing Team
Conclusions As much as knowing your way through the photography maze populated by ISO settings, lens choice, (auto)focus performance and so on, successfully shooting sport competitions requires a lot of background work and social skills, as well as stamina and concentration. You’re not supposed to attend a Marines bootcamp, a con men conference and a crash course in volleyball, rowing or whatever the sport you have to work with to develop such specific capabilities. But it would definitive helps… Part 1 – Intro, Before the event, getting your media pass Part 2 – Before the event, having your media pass working for you Part 3 – During the event, get…
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Macarons. Again
I made this photograph inside a pâtisserie, focusing on a glass bowl overflowing with pastel-coloured macarons. The shallow depth of field brings the confectionery into crisp attention while softening the background, where figures and shelves dissolve into warm blur. The arrangement of sweets, piled almost carelessly, conveys abundance rather than the rigid order usually associated with patisserie display. Technically, the image works through contrast of light and tone. The reflective surface of the glass bowl catches highlights, while the soft illumination keeps the delicate textures of the macarons intact. The exposure holds steady despite mixed lighting, managing both the bright surfaces of the sweets and the darker recesses of the…
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@ Mediterranean Beach Games 2015 – Beach Wrestlers
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Belgian Hats
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@ Mediterranean Beach Games 2015 – Italian Beach Volley Female Team – Laura Giombini, Giulia Toti
In beach volleyball, there is no hiding place. The court is small, the sand unforgiving, and every move is laid bare in the sun. This frame captures the Italian National Beach Volleyball Team mid-assault, in that heartbeat where effort and instinct fuse into pure action. The player lunging forward is all tensile strength and precision—shoulders squared, arms extended, eyes locked on the ball as if it were the only thing in existence. Her teammate hovers just behind, reading the play, ready to carry the attack forward. The sand tells its own story—scattered divots from past dives, streaks from sudden stops, a textured record of the match’s ebb and flow. The…
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Belgian Gloves
There’s a certain satisfaction in encountering a composition that seems to have arranged itself for the camera, as though the visual world conspired to present its colours and forms in perfect order. Belgian Gloves offers just that: a tight row of leather gloves, each perched on a mannequin hand, marching in a perfect gradient from cool blues through greens, yellows, oranges, and finally deep reds. It is at once commercial display and chromatic study. From a compositional perspective, the image benefits enormously from its frontal, symmetrical framing. By positioning the gloves parallel to the camera, the photographer creates a sense of order that invites the eye to travel along the…
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@ Mediterranean Beach Games 2015 – Italian Beach Volley Team – Marco Caminati (and a primer on sport photography, part 6)
Part 1 – Intro, Before the event, getting your media pass Part 2 – Before the event, having your media pass working for you Part 3 – During the event, get ready for the show Part 4 – During the event, how to choose which event attend to Part 5 – During the event, shooting the game After the event “Enjoying” the field days doesn’t end up the assignment because the selection and post processing part is as important as taking proper pictures. 1 – Selection and post processing Depending by the assignment, you might be required to (select, process and) send your employer the pictures in real time or…
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Avvocati. A New Book
I’ve just finished the project I’ve been working in the past months. Lawyers’ human and private face.
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@ Mediterranean Beach Games 2015 – Wrestling, Italy vs France (And a primer on sport photography – Part 5)
Part 1 – Intro, Before the event, getting your media pass Part 2 – Before the event, having your media pass working for you Part 3 – During the event, get ready for the show Part 4 – During the event, how to choose which event attend to 3 – Shooting the game As I said before, the chances of getting a good exposure greatly improve if you are (or have become) comfortable with the game. But knowing how the ball rolls worth nothing if you’re not in the right position to take the shot. a – Reclaiming your space from other photographers Event (and thus sport) photography is a…
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@ Mediterranean Beach Games 2015 – Italian Female Rowing Team
I made this photograph during the Mediterranean Beach Games, following the Italian women’s rowing team in competition. What drew me in was not the finish line or the celebratory gesture, but the moment immediately after exertion, when effort is still written on the body and concentration has not yet dissolved into relief or disappointment. The composition is built around proximity and tension. One athlete occupies the foreground, turned slightly away, her back marked by mud and effort, the word Italia acting as both identifier and graphic element. The second rower remains just behind her, partially out of focus, her expression strained and searching. This staggered arrangement creates depth while reinforcing…
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@ Mediterrean Beach Games 2015 – Italian Beach Soccer Team (and a primer on sport-photography, part 4)
Part 1 – Intro, Before the event, getting your media pass Part 2 – Before the event, having your media pass working for you Part 3 – During the event, get ready for the show 2 – How to choose which event attend to Possibly the most difficult thing to handle in multi-competition events is how to select the sport and the stage (qualifications, semi-finals, first-second place final etc.) Unless you’re working for a specific team as its official photographer or asked to mainly portrait sponsor’s banner (yes, this happens in sport-photography: athletes are just a way to channel the eyes on a chocolate bar or a bottle of wine),…
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Shaken
The frame is a study in disarray — not in subject matter alone, but in its very execution. The scene, taken on a busy street, is blurred throughout: the figures, the car, the elegant repetition of arches behind them. Whether caused by an unsteady hand, a slow shutter, or a deliberate choice, the result is an image where nothing stands still enough to become the focal point. Two figures anchor the composition: one in the foreground to the left, caught mid-turn, the other to the right, hunched over something in his hands. Their outlines dissolve into the tonal softness, denying the viewer access to facial expression or fine detail. The…
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@ Mediterranean Beach Games 2015 – Italian Beach Handball Female Team (and a primer on sport photography, part 3)
During the event 1 – Get Ready for the Show a – Check the logistic Be sure to have the competitions’ timetable at hand. Every day go first and early to the main press room and ask for last minutes changes. Ask how to check further possible issues (delays, cancellation, venue shifting. etc.) For each venue try to locate a “safe spot”, a place where you can rest or leave your bag (relatively) safe. b – Check the weather forecast If the competitions you’re attending is outdoor, checking the weather forecast is of the utmost importance. Among other things, it helps you choose what gear and dresses bring with you:…
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A cigarette
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A Waiter in via Sardegna
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@ Mediterranean Beach Games 2015 – Italy Beach Soccer Team’s Goalkeeper (and a primer on sport photography, part 2)
2 – Have the media pass working for you Part 1 of this primer dealt with the topic “Getting Your Media Pass”. Now is the time to use it properly. a – Meet the media-manager and participate to the technical briefing (or anyway get the relevant information about the competition) If the competition is big enough, chances are that the organizing committee has appointed a media-manager in charge of handling all the issues related to broadcasting services and photographers. You definitely need to talk to him as early as you can, to get: your numbered “photographer jacket” (often needed to access the competition fields), a leaflet with all the relevant…
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@ Mediterranean Beach Games 2015 – Italian Anthem (and a primer on sport photography, part 1)
Intro Working on assignment is different than loitering around “waiting for the moment”. This is true, in particular, for sport photography where you have to handle multiple issues at a time, most of them not related to the actual shooting activity. While there are a lot of sources to drink from that hint about how to assemble and check the gear, which lens is better suited for the job and so on, a less fancy but nevertheless critical issue to be aware of is how to handle the logistic and administrative stuff. Before the event 1 – Getting your media pass a – Accelerate the shipping of the accreditation…
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Inside The Palace of Power
I took this photograph inside a government building, in the afternoon, when the corridors echo in silence and the light is all reflected memory. The image focuses on a phone—old-style, maroon, hanging uselessly from its hook—framed by dark wood panels and infinite reflections. It’s a cliché of power, really: opulence, silence, and an obsolete instrument of control. The technical conditions weren’t ideal. I had no tripod, the light was dim and uneven, and I was working with a handheld digital camera not built for low-light finesse. ISO had to go up, and with it came the noise. But I decided not to clean it. Grain, in this case, felt appropriate.…
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Roots On The Roof
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Off Duty
From the back, their posture says almost as much as their uniforms. Four policemen walk away from the viewer, the word Polizia split and partially hidden by their movement. There’s no confrontation here, no heightened drama — instead, the image captures that moment of decompression, when the weight of vigilance begins to lift. The decision to shoot from behind removes the personal identifiers that a front-facing portrait would reveal. We are left with silhouettes of authority in retreat, the curve of a shoulder, the relaxed drop of an arm, the natural slouch of someone whose shift may be ending. In the background, the urban night hums along: signage, faint light,…
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A Smoker
Some portraits are not posed; they happen between moments, in that thin sliver of time when the subject is simply being. This was one of those. The woman — cigarette in hand, wrist adorned with metallic bangles catching stray light — had the stillness of someone lost in thought. The background was unremarkable, and that suited me: no distractions, no narrative clutter, just her profile against a soft blur. The shot was taken in available light, which was far from ideal. The conditions pushed me to raise the ISO more than I’d have liked, and as a result, the image carries a touch more grain than a studio portraitist would…
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Shadow On The Wall
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Mind The Step
