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Ultras
I took this shot in Pescara during a night of celebration and mayhem—where passion collided with authority, and the air thickened with smoke, sweat, and sound. It wasn’t violence, not quite. It was euphoria channelling itself into a public rite, where boundaries between fanfare and disorder blurred in real time. From a photographic standpoint, the scene presented a compositional chaos that demanded structure. I used the police car as an anchor. It sits dead centre, unintentionally symbolic, both literally and metaphorically surrounded. The crowd’s energy surges outward from it, flags, limbs, phones, chants—all reaching towards the bus in the background that carries the real object of devotion: the team. Technically,…
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A Special Dress for a Special Party
At night in Stockholm, when shop windows become small stages and the city quiets enough, interiors to speak outward. The mannequin stands alone, dressed in white, suspended between the street and the room behind it. There is no reflection of passers-by, no movement intruding — only the slow, deliberate stillness of fabric and objects. The dress is light, almost ceremonial, while the surrounding space is heavy with material: stacked books, dark wood, layered garments, textured rugs. The shop feels less like a retail space than a private archive, somewhere between wardrobe and memory.
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Hanging
Do dangerous things safely. 安全に危険なものを行います
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Daniele Silvestri – Live@Cinema teatro Massimo – Pescara
Be Canon, Nikon or whatever, when the assignment is demanding, there is no substitute for a DSLR. I kept taking with me a Fuji (mainly, an X-E2 with the 18-55 and sometimes an X100s) as a wide-angle camera. The results are very good but, in a scenario like a theater, can’t possibly match the versatility of a 5D Mk III with the mighty Canon EF 100-400. Enjoy the pictures!
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A Sound Engineer
In this photograph, I wanted to show not the performer, but the architect of the sound. The image was taken in near-total darkness—lit only by a cold task lamp and the residual ambient from an electronic set. I waited until her face dipped into the glow of the desk lamp, her attention consumed by the maze of patch cables, mixers, and noise boxes she was bending to her will. I shot handheld at a high ISO, knowing it would introduce noise and softness, but also that any attempt to flatten the contrast would erase the mood. The exposure was pushed just enough to hold detail in the shadows while allowing…
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A Lamp in an Old Teather
There is something quietly poetic about an object photographed in isolation, removed from its intended context yet still resonating with hints of its former life. This image — a simple floor lamp set against a timeworn, crimson theatre curtain — speaks volumes in its sparseness. The lamp, with its contemporary, almost utilitarian design, stands in stark contrast to the opulent, textured backdrop, a relic from an era when theatres embraced velvet and grandeur. From a compositional standpoint, the decision to place the lamp off-centre allows the folds and rich patina of the curtain to dominate the frame. The interplay between the deep reds, the lamp’s soft white glow, and the…
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Portrait of a Law Professor (and Free Climber…)
Some portraits speak as much through their surroundings as through the subject’s face. This image—shot on T-Max 400—was conceived to be less about formality and more about quiet juxtapositions. The professor, sharply dressed in a waistcoat and tie, sits in an office that is anything but stiff: behind him, a large photograph of a free climber grips the rock face with raw, physical intensity. The contrast is the story. The academic’s world is one of precision, argument, and interpretation of law; the climber’s, one of risk, strength, and moment-to-moment survival. And yet, the connection between the two is more than decorative. This professor is himself a climber—an individual who understands…
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Portrait of a Gunsmith
No bravado. No noise. Just focus. This is not a scene from a film. It’s a portrait of a gunsmith — hands steady, brow drawn in close. The room is small, functional, the shelves stacked. There’s no display of violence here. No suggestion of power. Only the patient act of tuning metal into balance. He’s wearing gloves, not out of fear, but out of respect — for the tool, for the work, for the ritual. The gun isn’t loaded. It isn’t posed. It’s an object in process. A mechanism being read, understood, maintained. I took this photo in near silence. The only sound was the faint click of a slide…
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An Old Boxing Gym
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Real Time Update
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Who Can It Be Now?
He stood apart, not physically—just mentally. Everyone else was turned toward the stage, pulsing with light and sound, faces lifted, absorbed. But he was here, high above the crowd on a metal platform, lit by a cold phone screen. Not watching, not present. Swiping, scrolling, messaging—connected to everything but the moment directly in front of him. I composed this with intent. The platform rails frame him almost like a cage. He isn’t trapped, but the symbolism’s hard to ignore. The crowd beyond is dense, soft-focused, awash in ambient green and blue from the stage lights. Exposure had to be pushed—concert lighting isn’t kind to dynamic range—but I kept it tight…
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Staged?
This pictures portrays Max Gazzè 2016 tour’s official photographer asking the crowd to raise and wave the hands. Although the picture is staged (meaining: the photographer “created” the “moment” instead of waiting for it) the outcome is not, since is the result of the dialog between the photographer and the people.
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Crowd Control
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Accidental Precision
This wasn’t a technical success. It was a mistake. I had just raised the camera when I accidentally twisted the zoom ring mid-exposure. The result: a vortex of distortion with a woman at the centre, walking straight into it. And yet, it worked. Not in spite of the blur—but because of it. The composition wasn’t planned, but it landed with an unexpected balance. The vanishing point draws backward, while the red coat blasts forward—like pigment dragged across the frame by a restless brush. The background—palm trees, streetlights, suburban geometry—melts into curves, turning realism into gesture. This image violates every rule of clarity. It’s not sharp. Her face is unreadable,…
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Multiple Peripheral Visions
This frame was shot instinctively—no time to refocus, no second attempt. What emerged is less a photograph than a study in misdirection. Every figure in this image is out of focus, yet the meaning is sharper than most high-resolution portraits. The scene plays like theatre. A soldier, heavily armed, stands at ease in the foreground. A woman in heels walks away, blurred into silhouette. In the background, people sit, smoke, talk, check phones. The corridor and its black door—dead centre, unnerving in its neutrality—stares back like a question. The sign reads “BALCONE DIPLOMATICO,” almost comical in its contrast to the ordinariness of what surrounds it. Technically, it’s a failure by…
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Carabinieri:To Serve And Protect
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Art Auction at Piazza Navona
Piazza Navona, with its fountains, baroque facades, and endless hum of voices, has always been more than a square—it’s a theatre. In this scene, the performance is one of persuasion. An artist, dressed for the chill in a beanie and heavy jacket, holds up a framed painting. His expression is animated, hand gesturing as he speaks, the stance of a man who knows he has only a few minutes to turn curiosity into commitment. Across from him, a young couple listens. The woman’s hand hovers near her mouth—hesitation, calculation, or perhaps simply the reflex of someone considering a purchase that’s more about emotion than necessity. The man, in his blue…
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A coffee at Saint Eustachio’s
Saint Eustachio is not a place for rushed photography. Between the crush of customers, the warm glare off the coffee machines, and the tight spaces, you’ve got to work with precision — and patience. Using the Fuji X-E2 with a Zeiss Planar 50mm f/1.5, I knew this would be a manual focus game. Autofocus would have been hunting in the low light, and besides, the Planar has a way of rewarding the slowness it demands. I focused carefully on the barista’s eyes, knowing that at f/1.5 depth of field would be razor thin. He was completely absorbed in his work, and I wanted that concentration to be the anchor…
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Action! (beware of Fuji X-Pro 2)
I’ve shot this picture with a Fujifilm X-E2 and a Zeiss C Sonnar T* 1,5/50 ZM. The split-image manual focus confirmation worked properly (though with a strong light it’s more difficult to handle it) and the resulting file in term of size and quality is fairly satisfying. Enter the X-Pro2 with a bigger resolution and new RAW format. While a 24 Megapixel APS-C sensor creates file that can be handled by most of the computer currently in place, the new RAW format will require the latest Photoshop CC/Lightroom update. So, if you chose not to enter into the mud of a subscription-based software licensing model, all of a sudden you…
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Max Gazzè Tour 2016 Live @Pescara
For this reportage I’ve borrowed a Canon 5D Mk III coupled with a EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM and my Fuji X-E2 with the XF 18-55 f/2.8-4R LM OIS. Of course, I got no operational problems with the 5D (if you know how to overcome its limits) and the lens performed very good, but I must admit that I’ve been surprised by the quality of the X-E2 images, taken at ISO 3200. Does this means that is time to trash the Canon and go for a “Fuji-only” setup? I don’t think so, in particular if telephotos are a recurring presence in the jobs. True, now Fujifilm too has a…
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After a Tough Day
I took this photo with a Fujifilm X-E2 and a Leica Elmarit 90/2,8. Manual focusing with the split-image option has been fairly easy.
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Sales Force
There’s an odd tension in this photograph — one that pulls you in before you’ve even had time to work out why. On the surface, it’s a straightforward shop-window scene: mannequins in carefully styled outfits, lit with that clinical precision that retail chains excel at. Yet the longer you look, the more unsettling it becomes. The composition is tight, almost regimented, with the mannequins arranged in military formation. Their identical, expressionless faces create a chorus of stillness, reinforced by the repetition of hair colour, pose, and stance. The red “ALDI” sign in the foreground slices into the frame with an almost aggressive verticality, its bold typography competing for attention with…
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Should I Buy It? (Best Taken With an 85mm)
…but actually with a 23mm (35mm equivalent, cropped.) It’s not just a shopping street. It’s a stage. Look closer: this frame holds a silent performance — a subtle interplay of desire, decision, and doubt. Three women stand just outside the warmth of the boutique, their eyes fixed on mannequins who, ironically, seem far more confident than the living observers. The mannequin inside strikes a bold pose, clad in red and certainty. The women outside? Bundled in coats, their body language somewhere between ambivalence and negotiation. On the far left, another kind of window. A glowing child’s fantasy, plastered with Disney’s “Frozen” — a reminder of simpler times, when wanting something…
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The Watchman (Street-Photography Shortcuts)
As every thing under the sun, Street-Photography too has its own shortcuts: freaky street-portraits are one of those. It’s easy to have your pictures noticed when your subject is a 60-years old Brit-Punk, an implausible-color dressed man or whatever alike: these subjects do the work on your behalf and it is very hard to obtain such kind of picture AND conveying actual meaning. Personally I like photos that – alone or made meaningful by a title – can tell a story. This way I can try to (pretend to) make “unique” shots, that stand with dignity in front of the zillions of 500px/Instagram/Flickr’s great images that are often perfect but…
