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Ottica Boncompagni
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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A Fence
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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A Grocery Store in Rome
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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A Blue Vespa
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Ramping Up
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Food For Thought
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A Rusted Window
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The Chicken
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An Early Morning Fishing Expedition
I shot this just after sunrise. Light was low but clear, casting long shadows and warming the palette without oversaturating the sand. The three men—two pushing, one walking alongside—form a diagonal that pulls the eye from left to right, through netting, boat, and beach. The scene holds movement without blur. Every element is in transition. I framed from distance using a moderate telephoto to compress the layers—foreground vegetation, safety fencing, beach, and deep field of straw umbrellas. The shallow depth of field separates the action while still referencing the beach’s infrastructure. I let the background stay busy. It adds context, not confusion. Exposure was tricky. Highlights off the boat’s rubber…
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On Air
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Nightlife in Bruxelles
You can smell it before you hear it — the warm hum of beer, laughter, breath crystallising in the cold. This photo, taken in the backstreets of Brussels, isn’t a postcard of nightlife. It’s a sketch. Loose, fast, half in shadow. Which makes it all the more true. Cafés and pubs stack signs on top of each other like citations — Delirium, Floris Bar, Café, Pub, Garden. Every name lit, every door half-open, promising exactly what you need at this hour. But the terrace tables are empty, stacked in rows like punctuation marks between stories. It’s too cold to sit. Too late to be still. The people gather where the…
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Zebra Crossing, Again…
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Quality Check. Try Before You Buy
This image was taken outside a Parisian bookstore, a moment as classic as it is current: a man stands in the entrance, thumbing through a photobook, absorbed but casual. It’s not staged—he didn’t even glance at the camera. He was too focused, as anyone who’s spent hours weighing the purchase of one more photography book will understand. His expression wasn’t about doubt; it was about judgment—quality check, plain and simple. The composition offered itself. Framed by the bookstore’s open door, the man becomes the central figure in a visual funnel, surrounded by vertical stacks of books, postcards, and prints. The image flattens space into layered density—foreground filled with titles, background…
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Perfect Strangers
This was shot at a crossing in Brussels. Late afternoon, golden hour starting to lean into haze, and the kind of sidelight that makes the most mundane street scenes feel sculptural. I wasn’t looking for a story—I was just following the light. What I got instead was this: two people, frozen in proximity, framed by urban geometry and indifferent routine. They didn’t know each other. That much was clear. No shared glances, no body language suggesting connection. Just two people waiting for the light to change, locked in that brief, suspended moment before movement resumes. But visually, they worked in tandem—her neon green jacket, his mustard ochre coat, both cutting…
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National Security
A danger for the National Security? This picture is nothing special, but for the fact that while I was taking it a security guard at the European Parliament tried to stop me on the “National Security” excuse, by claiming that photos were not allowed. Minding the lesson of “Stand your ground” I countered politely the requests of the guard, by telling him: – First: shooting in public spaces is perfectly legal, – Second: there where no “no-photos allowed” signs, – Third: “I am a lawyer and a journalist. I checked both EU and Belgian Law and find nothing that could prevent me to do what I am doing. Could you…
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Skating on Avenue Louise
The architecture of Avenue Louise is built to impress — symmetrical, imposing, wrapped in glass and concrete. It speaks the language of power, efficiency, and institutional gravitas. Yet here, cutting across the uniformity of its grid, a lone skateboarder defies gravity and symmetry alike. In mid-air, suspended between takeoff and landing, the young skater rewrites the function of space. This plaza wasn’t designed for movement like his — spontaneous, raw, unruly — yet it hosts it with unexpected grace. The stark concrete façade becomes a backdrop, not a boundary. This is the city as canvas, the act of skating as resistance and reinterpretation. While others walk briskly from meeting…
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Hanging Heart at via Olmetto
Taken in Milan, this photograph is built around a single point of chromatic and emotional focus — a small, glossy red heart suspended from the centre of an ornate iron grille. The restrained colour palette of the stone façade and dark metalwork works to its advantage, ensuring the heart becomes a magnetic anchor for the viewer’s gaze. The pattern of the wrought iron, a chain of interlocking circles bisected by vertical bars, lends the image symmetry and rhythm, subtly broken by the heart’s irregular organic shape. The composition is tightly framed, allowing no distraction from the relationship between object and setting. The verticals of the grille are aligned with precision,…
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A
Some photographs are built on complexity — overlapping narratives, layered subjects, visual chaos distilled into coherence. This one is built on the opposite: a single, dominant letter and the deliberate restraint of elements. The capital “A” scrawled across the double wooden doors becomes both subject and statement. Whether an anarchist mark, an initial, or just a passing act of vandalism, it punctuates the otherwise rigid, formal architecture. The geometry of the building — rectangular panels, horizontal mouldings, the granite base — forms a rigid grid, and into this grid the bicycle is quietly inserted, its own triangles and curves breaking the dominance of the rectangles without challenging their order. Technically,…
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Off-Duty Eurocrats in Bruxelles
Late afternoon outside the European Parliament is a curious time. The intensity of the day’s debates, meetings, and bureaucratic rituals evaporates into the chill air, leaving behind something more recognisably human. I caught this scene as the sun was sinking, the light flattening into that pale, slightly diffused wash Brussels often wears in winter. I framed the shot to emphasise the contrast between the rigid geometry of the architecture and the small figure of the man stepping into the foreground. The curved glass façade on the right dominates, its repeating elements pulling the eye deeper into the image. The building almost seems to lean forward, pressing its presence into the…
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Late for Lunch
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Early Leave at Bruxelles-Midi
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Walking Table in via Cornaggia
Via Cornaggia in Milan is not a place one usually associates with humour in photography, yet this image carries an almost surreal tone. A man strides down the cobblestone street, carrying a table on his shoulders, its legs pointing skyward like some awkward sculpture. His face is completely obscured, leaving only body language and context to speak for him. The everyday act of transporting furniture becomes, in this frame, an absurd visual gesture. The narrow perspective of the street enhances the composition. The converging lines of the walls and cobbled path guide the eye directly to the man, amplifying his centrality within the scene. The geometry of the table mirrors…
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Is This Photo Illegal?
Yes, if it were taken in Hungary. Against the European Convention of Human Rights, Hungary passed a law that by next March 15 will require any photographer shooting in public space to obtain a signed “model release form”. This provision will be bashed by either the EU Court of Justice or the European Court of Human Rights (for the very same reasons I explained here), but it will take time and – first of all – a photographer that sacrifices himself on the altar of freedom.
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Relaxed Call at Boulevard du Palais
Paris lends itself so well to moments of quiet theatre, and this image captures one of those understated urban vignettes — a waiter leaning against a doorway, mid-call, somewhere between duty and a fleeting pause. The scene’s composition is clean and deliberate. The vertical symmetry of the architecture — the heavy wrought-iron window on the left, the dark panelled doors on the right — creates a structured backdrop that frames the human subject without overpowering him. The soft patina of the stone façade carries a sense of history, its muted tones setting off the crisp whites of the waiter’s apron and shirt. His black vest and bow tie anchor him…
