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The Day After The Tide
After the tide, the river comes back to normality, while the boatmen account for the damages. I waited for the light to fall low enough to cut across the hulls and expose what the flood left behind. This isn’t a storm photo—it’s what follows. Boats grounded sideways, lines tangled, some afloat, some tilted into the banks. Nothing dramatic. Just consequence. Shot from the opposite bank with a 300mm telephoto, compressed enough to layer the damage. The image stacks: river in the foreground, boats mid-frame, wreckage and crane behind. The eye bounces between verticals—poles, masts, supports—and diagonals—listing decks and snapped canopies. It’s cluttered by design. Recovery never looks clean. Exposure leaned toward…
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Saving the Boat
The tide is coming, and a sailor works hard to protect his boat.
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A HDR Experiment
This is my first – and possibly, last – attempt of using HDR to post-process my pictures. Unless I’m able to get a more creative outcome, there is no reason to have pictures that look deadly similar to those of the other users of Nik Software Collection (as I am:))
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Clandestine Seagull
I took this photograph in the harbour, late in the afternoon when the light had already started to fade into that bluish, uncertain zone. The boat was clearly not preparing to set sail, yet there was this lone seagull perched as if ready for departure, almost waiting for a conductor to come and check its ticket. That hint of anthropomorphic humour is what made me stop and press the shutter. Compositionally, the bird sits roughly on the intersection of thirds, naturally drawing the eye amid the clutter of fishing gear, ropes, and rust. The machinery around it frames the subject without enclosing it, lending a sense of depth and context.…
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The Traffic Controller
The man in the reflective uniform wasn’t posing, wasn’t waiting. He was simply doing his job — coordinating chaos with the quiet authority only experience provides. The scene unfolded quickly: the fire brigade’s crane on standby, the red and blue lights diffused by daylight, the line of hesitant cars waiting for a signal that only one person could give. I didn’t have much time to frame this; sometimes a good photograph is more a matter of presence than planning. I shot slightly underexposed to preserve the detail in the brighter areas of the sky and keep the colour temperature cool and flat, emphasising the mundane over the dramatic. Compositionally, the…
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A Couch in the Yard
When the winter falls, a lonely couch only hosts a few leaves.
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An Altar for the Propaganda Machine
A powerful weapon, that equally served the good and the evil. I centred the composition with purpose. The typewriter is the object of worship—flanked symmetrically by twin candelabras, topped by a crude wire-and-canvas sketch. Every element builds the metaphor. This is not furniture. It’s altar, theatre, relic. The machine is a vintage Olivetti. The light picks out its curves softly from camera right, bouncing off the keys and reinforcing the tactile weight of metal. It’s flanked by yellow candles—unused, deliberately vertical, unnaturally pristine. The contrast isn’t subtle. Industrial memory and ornamental symbolism in rigid balance. Above it all, the artwork floats: childish, abstract, gestural. Possibly a bicycle, possibly nothing. I included it…
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Up Where the World Unfolds
Some things — and some beings — refuse to stay where they are expected. This small mushroom, instead of emerging humbly from the soil like its kin, chose a perch on a weathered branch, lifted just high enough to see more of the world. I don’t know if fungi can be ambitious, but the sight of it certainly suggested a story of quiet defiance. I positioned the camera so the log would slice horizontally through the frame, letting the mushroom rise like a solitary sentinel against the blurred green backdrop. The shallow depth of field was essential here: it isolates the subject while allowing the texture of the bark and…
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Common Fate
There is a certain poetry in abandonment, a quiet narrative that emerges when objects, once part of daily life, are left to weather the seasons. Here, a potted plant—its container fractured but still holding its fragile inhabitant—leans against the white planks of a wall. Beside it, an old wooden chair, tipped forward, legs worn and uneven, stands as if caught mid-fall. Both share the same exile: placed outdoors, exposed to the damp green creep of moss and the chill of winter air. Their once-practical roles—providing comfort, holding life—have shifted into symbols of transience. The wood of the chair, scarred by years of use, echoes the plant’s brittle stems. Each has…
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Night Shift At The Gas Station
The cold was real. It soaked through the synthetic layers, condensed on every metal surface, and wrapped this frame in its own damp silence. What drew me to release the shutter wasn’t the uniform or the pump, but the stillness — a kind of pause in the machinery of necessity. This man, anonymous but emblematic, stood under the artificial glow of sodium light, framed by geometry and function. Technically, this isn’t a sharp image — and I’m glad it’s not. The slight blur works to its advantage, echoing the condensation on the glass through which I shot, or maybe just the fatigue of a night too long. The colours, though,…
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An illuminated escape path will help you to reach the exits …
After a night of steady rain, the city had fallen into that reflective state that only wet streets can produce. The pavement was still slick, holding onto the water as though unwilling to let it drain away. Streetlights scattered across the surface, each one elongating into streaks and patches of colour, turning an ordinary walkway into a shifting canvas of muted golds and greens. What caught my eye first was the faint line of embedded lights tracing a curve through the centre of the frame. They weren’t bright enough to dominate the scene, but they did give it direction—a subtle guide through the reflections and irregular textures. The rain had…
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Portrait of a Lawyer
Not every portrait needs a full frame. Sometimes, it’s what’s just out of focus that tells the most. Shot close—uncomfortably close—this image doesn’t try to flatter. It doesn’t seek symmetry or polish. The man’s on the phone, mid-thought, caught between reaction and restraint. His eyes are sharp, but not fixed. His hand rises instinctively to his face, as if shielding or steadying something unspoken. The photograph is grainy, the depth shallow. One lens, one second, one expression pulled between two worlds: the one he’s hearing and the one he’s trying to shape with his response. You don’t hear the voice on the other end, but you can sense it—by the…
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Sleep Wins
I found them in that fragile hour when night hasn’t fully given up and the day hasn’t quite claimed the streets. Two bodies slumped against a shuttered shopfront, graffiti curling behind them like a silent narrator. They weren’t staged, of course — this was simply where exhaustion decided to settle. With the Canon EOS-M paired to the EF-M 18–55, I had the flexibility to frame them in a way that gave space for the scene to breathe. The late light worked in my favour, sliding in at an angle that brought warmth to their skin tones while pulling texture from the cold metal behind them. The graffiti, soft enough not…
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Pillars Of The Beach
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Staring At The Infinite
Shot on a quiet coastline, this image started as a spontaneous exercise in balance and distance—two figures set against the immeasurable vastness of the sea. The horizon offered a natural axis, both dividing and uniting the sky and the water, while the couple, placed slightly off-centre, became the emotional anchor. I chose a moderate focal length to avoid exaggerating depth or flattening perspective. The intent was to render the vastness not as spectacle, but as presence—imposing yet still intimate. The sea is not in fury, nor calm; it simply is, stretching without end behind them. That’s the metaphor I was after. Compositionally, I leaned on symmetry without being rigid. The…
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The Suit
How would it feel like, when everybody around goes to the beach, wearing a suit and going to the office?
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The SoundMaster
You don’t usually see them—not really. They’re always there, but never in the spotlight. Still, without them, there wouldn’t be a show. I was at a concert recently, camera in hand, doing what I normally do—trying to catch something a little off-stage, something that tells the rest of the story. That’s when I spotted him: back to the crowd, eyes on the board, headphones hanging loose around his neck. Focused, steady. Doing the kind of work that only gets noticed when something goes wrong. I framed the shot from behind. The lights of the soundboard, all blinking and glowing, lit up the edges of his shirt—a simple icon of a…
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Evolution of a Guitar Player
It’s strange how a decade can pass in the blink of an eye — and yet carry with it the weight of evolution. The last time I met Roberto Di Virgilio, he had a Steinberger in his hands: all sharp edges, carbon fibre, and the aura of the 1980s futurism that guitarists either loved or dismissed outright. Seeing him now, a Les Paul slung across his shoulder, feels almost like a chapter shift in a novel I didn’t realise I was still reading. The photograph was taken in the kind of setting that usually conspires against the photographer: a stage during setup, flat midday light filtered through the structure above,…
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Head-Dresser
A market stall at first glance, and yet, a surreal composition unfolds. Plastic mannequin heads rise from wooden sticks, lined up with aloof dignity, each adorned with scarves and hats meant to lure the hurried passer-by. They stare silently into space, held aloft like modern-day trophies, eerily anthropomorphic yet stubbornly artificial. The display isn’t just for commerce—it’s unintentional theatre. The pun in the title Head-dresser plays cleverly on the expected hairdresser. But instead of grooming the living, this stall ‘dresses’ the disembodied, the ornamental. These mannequins are not being styled—they are the style, repurposed vessels for fashion’s utilitarian need. And to the side, a woman walks past in winter garb, seemingly unaware of…
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Why on Earth people, in Italy, still eat junk food?
A cold night in an Italian piazza. The air carries the scent of roasted chestnuts, espresso, and wood smoke—but here, under the halo of fairy lights, the smell is unmistakably different. Oil. Sugar. Processed salt. A small crowd stands in front of a street cart, its bicycle frame weighed down with canisters, bags, and the faint hum of a generator. The vendor moves with practised speed, ladling batter, folding paper, handing over parcels of deep-fried comfort. The queue is patient, hands buried in pockets, eyes following the ritual as if it were part of the winter tradition. Beyond the cart, a carousel spins in soft blur, its music faint against…
