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Andrea Monti

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  • Colour,  Daily photo,  People,  Winter

    Portrait with Skewers

    December 6, 2014 /

    I took this indoors, handheld, under mixed lighting, using a short focal length and no modifiers. It’s not a technical showcase. It’s a study in immediacy—an encounter frozen before refinement. The figure stands close, wide lens pulling in distortion around the edges. Face and skewers both sit in the shallow foreground, lit unevenly by ceiling fluorescents and ambient bounce from a warm source camera-left. The colour cast is inconsistent. I left it. Adjusting white balance to neutrality would flatten the artificiality that holds the image together. The context is a real room, not a set. Composition favours gesture. The skewers point forward, catching highlights and pulling focus. His hoodie and…

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    Andrea Monti

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    Should I Buy It? (Best Taken With an 85mm)

    January 23, 2016

    Alive Or Not?

    February 16, 2013

    LP – Live@Anfiteatro La Civitella

    July 22, 2022
  • B&W,  Daily photo,  Visual,  Winter

    A Modern Nazca?

    December 4, 2014 /

    This image is one of those moments when photography abandons literalism and moves into interpretation. What you’re looking at is, in fact, a stretch of pavement and asphalt intersected by strong shadows—but the shallow depth of field and the grain structure render it unmoored from immediate recognition. The blurred lines could be mistaken for ancient geoglyphs seen from above, hence the tongue-in-cheek title. The parallel bands, intersecting curves, and sudden diagonals call to mind aerial archaeology, even though the camera was barely a metre from the ground. The ambiguity invites a double take, and in that pause, the viewer starts to reconstruct meaning. Technically, this is a photograph of deliberate…

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    Andrea Monti

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    7Artisans 35mm 0.95 – Testing this Fujifilm X Mount Lens in a Demanding Environment

    December 22, 2024

    YANE – Yet Another Nepal Exhibit

    March 23, 2015

    Longtime Abandoned

    May 30, 2014
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  Odds,  Visual,  Winter

    Alien Veins

    December 3, 2014 /

    It could be a close-up from a science fiction set—a fragment of skin stretched over something alive, the faint ridges and channels mapping a circulatory system not of this Earth. The blue-grey surface is both organic and mineral, a texture that resists quick identification. The lines that run across it, some deeper, some fading into the background, suggest veins—arteries carrying whatever fluid an alien physiology might depend on. They seem to rise and sink, as if the surface itself were breathing. The faint crosshatch pattern interrupts the flow, adding to the unease: is this grown or manufactured? In reality, the subject might be utterly mundane. But in photography, truth is…

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    Andrea Monti

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    EOS-M. An Act of Fairness

    July 24, 2013

    The Jewels Sale

    November 18, 2015

    Traffic Master

    December 19, 2016
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  People,  Streets&Squares,  Winter

    Suspicious

    December 2, 2014 /

    Every street photographer knows that moment — the fraction of a second when a stranger’s gaze brushes against yours and something shifts in the air. Suspicion. Wariness. An almost imperceptible tightening of the body. That’s the curse: the invisible threshold you cross when candid turns into confrontation, even if only in the subject’s mind. In this frame, the man in the magenta sweater and black coat is mid-stride, his expression caught somewhere between concentration and mild irritation. He’s moving with purpose, but his eyes — just soft enough in the focus to keep anonymity intact — seem aware of my presence. The shallow depth of field lets the textured walls…

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    Andrea Monti

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    After a Tough Day

    January 30, 2016

    The Sentinel

    August 13, 2013

    A Quiet Evening

    June 26, 2013
  • Buildings,  Colour,  Daily photo,  Gates&Fences,  Rome,  Winter

    Guest Are Welcome!

    December 1, 2014 /

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    Andrea Monti

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    Partner in Glam

    May 3, 2023

    Lightblade

    September 6, 2013

    The Businessman…

    February 9, 2013
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  Doors&Windows,  Winter

    The Drying Machine

    November 30, 2014 /

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    Andrea Monti

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    An Early Morning Fishing Expedition

    July 29, 2014

    What (or Who) Are These Hangs For?

    May 21, 2013

    PI Room At Palais de la Découverte

    June 7, 2015
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  People,  Rome,  Winter

    Red Bag, Black Shoes

    November 27, 2014 /

    This frame was taken at street level, quite literally. I crouched, waiting for the traffic to pause, and caught her mid-stride—ankle exposed, bag swinging low, oblivious to the lens just metres away. The choice of crop was deliberate. I wanted anonymity, but not detachment. By excluding the face, the image becomes less about the individual and more about the semiotics of presence—gesture, attire, movement, and the way we carve out identity with things. The red bag dominates the composition, not just chromatically but structurally. Its synthetic gloss, reptilian texture, and almost architectural form turn it into a visual anchor. It’s loud, assertive, unapologetic. And then, in counterpoint, the black shoes—quiet,…

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    Andrea Monti

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    Mario Asks for it!

    April 9, 2014

    The Expired Film Series – Episode 7 – Kodak Portra 160 – June 2015 shot in Oct. 2023

    January 11, 2024

    How to Shoot Stand-up Paddle Competitions

    April 29, 2024
  • Buildings,  Colour,  Daily photo,  Rome,  Winter

    A Lamppost

    November 26, 2014 /

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    Andrea Monti

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    Portrait of a Master luthier

    October 26, 2013

    What lasts of a springtime hailstorm

    June 22, 2013

    God Save the Queen!

    September 6, 2014
  • Buildings,  Colour,  Daily photo,  Rome,  Winter

    Life Within the Post Office

    November 24, 2014 /

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    Portrait of a Gunsmith

    February 24, 2016

    Off Duty

    September 4, 2015

    Careful With That Bike, Eugene!

    July 29, 2013
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  Restaurants&Bar,  Winter

    A Beverage Dispenser

    November 21, 2014 /

    The scene is dim, almost swallowed by shadow, yet two islands of light remain. At the centre of the frame, a refrigerated Coca-Cola display glows cold blue-white, its bottles and cans lined like soldiers on parade. Beside it, an older vending machine hums softly, its red housing lit from within by a warmer, almost nostalgic orange. Together they form a diptych of light—past and present vending, side by side. This photograph thrives on contrasts: the artificial chill of the drink cooler against the tungsten warmth of the coin-operated relic, the corporate gloss of branded red against the creeping darkness of a closed café. In the far right, upturned chairs signal…

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    Andrea Monti

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    Lost In Barcelona’s Beauty

    June 13, 2014

    Rusted Platform

    April 25, 2015

    A Lockheed C-130 Hercules

    January 31, 2021
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  Fighters,  People,  Winter

    Duel Inside The Cage

    November 20, 2014 /

    I shot this during an amateur MMA bout—tight quarters, fast motion, uneven lighting, and no second takes. What I wanted was proximity: to feel the tension hanging between the two fighters as they size each other up in the few quiet seconds before contact. I framed it just behind one of them, using his shoulder as a natural vignette to guide the viewer’s eye toward the opponent’s face. The focus is deliberately shallow. I could have chased clarity, but that wasn’t the point. The blurred expression of the man in the background says more than a tack-sharp portrait ever could. His intensity survives the softness. What you lose in detail,…

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    Andrea Monti

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    Carl Zeiss T* 50 1,5 Sonnar and EOS EF-M 18-55

    August 4, 2013

    Street Of New York… Possibly

    March 21, 2017

    Portrait of a young guitar player

    May 4, 2014
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  Doors&Windows,  Past&Relics,  Winter

    An Old Wi(n)dow

    November 17, 2014 /

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    The Flying Dutchman… a sort of

    March 19, 2017

    Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

    January 14, 2013

    Couples

    May 17, 2013
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  Landscape,  Winter

    Pavement

    November 16, 2014 /

    Look down. That’s where the history usually hides. This photo was taken not for what it shows, but for what it holds: time, pressure, order, and the slow, quiet work of weather. Pebbles set into concrete. Bricks pressed into place. Moss finding the lines and growing into them without permission. There’s nothing dramatic here—no subject in the conventional sense. Just texture and pattern and subtle, lived-in contrast. Whites, greens, browns, a bit of erosion, and a soft blue cast that comes from early evening or maybe reflected sky. A patch of street that thousands have stepped over without ever seeing. Sometimes photography is about finding the unnoticed—framing a space so…

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    Andrea Monti

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    When The Passion Is Gone (thank to a sneaky photographer)

    August 21, 2013

    Photography and the Importance of a Proper Training

    April 23, 2024

    A Stop in Reggio Emilia

    February 21, 2024
  • B&W,  Buildings,  Daily photo,  Past&Relics,  Winter

    Faces in the Façade: A Ghostly Smile in Stone

    November 15, 2014 /

    The camera tilts upward, catching the weathered skin of a building where plaster peels like old parchment. Two circles and an arch, carved decades ago, sit quietly above the passageway. Yet in this photograph, the mind cannot help but play: the decoration forms a round-eyed, wide-mouthed face, its features soft and slightly comic. The resemblance is uncanny—here is the echo of the Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters, peering down with an oblivious grin. The cracked and flaking surface becomes its aging skin, the faded stucco a reminder that even ghosts of pop culture can find new haunts in architecture. Light and shadow turn structural detail into character. The deep arch below reads…

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    Andrea Monti

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    Pensive, On the Way Home

    November 28, 2014

    Snaps of a Flamenco recital…

    April 26, 2013

    The Stare of a T800

    August 4, 2015
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  People,  Winter

    Three’s Company

    November 14, 2014 /

    Public benches are theatres of the unscripted. I caught this trio suspended in a casual triangle—neither fully connected nor entirely apart. The geometry between them is tense, not hostile, but uncertain. They don’t pose; they orbit each other, and the moment belongs to that hesitation. The photo hinges on spatial rhythm. The wide format stretches the composition just enough to isolate each figure, but the concrete shadows and the circular bench lock them into an unspoken narrative. The light slices the scene diagonally, a crisp late afternoon beam that exaggerates contrast and textures—the pavement, the blue pillar, even the worn telephone on the left. That phone, by the way, plays…

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    A true cricket?

    September 16, 2013

    Seeking Directions – Where Do I Go From Here?

    September 10, 2013

    An Asian Lion Guarding an Italian Town – One Shot Story

    August 27, 2025
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  Rome,  Winter

    Reluctant

    November 11, 2014 /

    It is a simple gesture, easily missed. But in that tension between movement and resistance lies a deeper reading of emotion and instinct. The dog, powerful and proud, lowers its head and anchors its weight as if reluctant to proceed—not from fear, but perhaps from nostalgia, uncertainty, or simply the inertia of old age. There is a moment of friction in this otherwise ordinary urban vignette: the human strides forward, while the dog—the loyal shadow, the constant companion—glances back, hesitates, drags its paws against the direction of motion. The leash, loosely held, is not a tool of command but a symbolic tether. It binds not through force, but through trust.…

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    Andrea Monti

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    The Last Barrell

    December 10, 2015

    Histoire d’O

    November 11, 2014

    Up from the Waterline

    December 3, 2016
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  Rome,  Winter

    Ottica Boncompagni

    November 7, 2014 /

    Walking through the streets of Rome with a camera in hand, I often find that shopfronts—particularly those that stubbornly resist the homogenisation of modern branding—tell more about a city’s cultural fabric than any monument. Ottica Boncompagni, captured here in this image, is a perfect example. The sign is visually loud, unapologetically retro, and absolutely Roman. The heavy, rounded typography in ochre and crimson recalls a distinctly 1970s aesthetic—an era of optimism and visual experimentation that still clings to the façades of certain Roman quartieri. And yet, this is not kitsch. It’s lived-in design, aged not by affectation but by time and endurance. From a technical perspective, the composition sits squarely…

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    Andrea Monti

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    Tsutaya Bookstore@Ginza

    December 6, 2020

    Behind the Glass

    April 4, 2015

    A

    March 30, 2014
  • B&W,  Daily photo,  Gates&Fences,  Lines,  Winter

    A Fence

    November 6, 2014 /

    What drew me to make this photograph was not the fence itself, but the way it interacted with the geometry behind it. The wire grid overlays the diagonal of the concrete stair and handrail, creating a tension between rigid containment and directional movement. The eye wants to follow the slope upward, yet is repeatedly interrupted by the vertical and horizontal bars in the foreground. In terms of composition, the alignment was deliberate. I positioned the frame so that the grid sat almost perfectly square, avoiding converging lines that would soften its structural authority. The diagonal cuts through the otherwise orthogonal arrangement, introducing a dynamic that stops the image from becoming…

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    Andrea Monti

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    Traffic Jam in Rome

    December 14, 2015

    The Argument

    December 27, 2012

    It’s always the right time

    February 17, 2013
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  Groceries,  Rome,  Winter

    A Grocery Store in Rome

    November 5, 2014 /

    Some photographs emerge not from the pursuit of the exceptional, but from the quiet insistence of the everyday. This frame, captured in Rome, is one of them. I didn’t wait for decisive moments or orchestrate elements. I simply stood in front of this unassuming mini market, with its fluorescent signage blinking “COLD DRINKS” and “APERTO,” and let the banality speak. The storefront is wedged into a stone facade, a brutal contrast softened by the cluttered joy of cheap pleasures: laminated posters of ice creams, fizzy drinks stacked like bricks, and a faded theatre poster wedged between glossy wrappers. You can almost smell the dusty coolness inside — a refuge from…

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    Andrea Monti

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    Portrait of a Lawyer

    October 5, 2013

    Full Moon

    May 9, 2017

    A quiet watchdog or long-time friend who enjoys some rest??

    May 23, 2013
  • Cars&Bikes,  Colour,  Daily photo,  Rome,  Winter

    A Blue Vespa

    November 3, 2014 /

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    Ray-Ban in Milan

    October 5, 2015

    Sky Patrol

    September 12, 2021

    Avid Readers

    August 17, 2013
  • B&W,  Daily photo,  Visual,  Winter

    Ramping Up

    September 16, 2014 /

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    Unkempt

    December 4, 2015

    What Does ‘Professional’ Mean in Photography?

    March 19, 2024

    On Film Simulation or ‘is fiction more real than reality, and why should we care?’

    July 19, 2025
  • B&W,  Daily photo,  Past&Relics,  Winter

    Food For Thought

    September 14, 2014 /

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    Let’s get the party started…

    January 20, 2014

    Action shot

    January 7, 2013

    The Ubiquitous Mobile

    July 14, 2016
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  Past&Relics,  Winter

    A Rusted Window

    September 11, 2014 /

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    Fujifilm XF 100-400: a quick test

    January 12, 2018

    Chasing the Runner

    October 6, 2013

    Paths of Life

    January 20, 2013
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  Landscape,  Winter

    The Chicken

    September 10, 2014 /

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    A Taxi Night Fleet At Oslo’s Central Station

    September 26, 2014

    Padua, a photographer’s goldmine

    October 31, 2024

    The sentinel…

    March 8, 2013
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