Andrea Monti

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  • B&W,  Brand Stores,  Daily photo,  Seasons,  Spring

    One Shot Story – Soulless Places

    April 17, 2025 /

    Official brand stores are a powerful way to assert a company’s presence. They are a bold statement of strength and confidence. They send a message to the customers and to those who aren’t yet: look! whenever you go we’re there for you(r wallett). Admittedly, when travelling abroad it is sometimes reassuring to find a ‘familiar’ place – a cafeteria, a fast food, an electronic gadget shop – where everything works ‘as it should’. On the other hand, though, this strength has a serious downfall. Where was this picture taken? Of course, you may guess the location from a few clues (for instance, it was likely taken in a small Italian…

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    Andrea Monti

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    Waiting For The Patrons – 2

    June 19, 2015

    (Not so) Intelligent Design

    October 26, 2018

    Lightblade

    September 6, 2013
  • B&W,  Bookstores,  Daily photo,  Winter

    二千円

    December 20, 2023 /

    The 2,000 yen note is something of a rarity even for the Japanese. As Japan is mainly a cash-based society (at least for everyday life), I made sure to carry enough money on my recent trip to the Kyushu region.The bank gave me a wad of brand new ¥2,000 notes, which were so unusual that they attracted the attention of many people I exchanged them with. The photo was taken with a КИЕВ 60 TTL and a волна 80/2.8, the film was a Ferrania P30.

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    Andrea Monti

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    Portrait of a Politician – 2

    June 15, 2014

    Fujifilm XF 18-120 just snapped in two

    September 10, 2023

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

    December 22, 2024
  • Boston,  Colour,  Daily photo,  Restaurants&Bar,  Summer

    Coffee at Caffè Nero

    July 16, 2023 /

    On the technical side, this photo was a test of the X-T5 capability to handle scenes with both strong highlights and shadows without increasing the standard dynamic range. As per the quality, despite the similarity of the name, definitely no, it has nothing ado with the ‘Nero’ one can taste in Trieste which —unbeknownst to many — is the Italian capital of coffee.

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    Andrea Monti

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    A Dragon Trainer?

    July 8, 2014

    Los Niños y El Tocaor

    October 30, 2017

    The Answer is On the Wall

    August 28, 2020
  • Boston,  Colour,  Daily photo,  Downtown,  Street Markets,  Summer

    A Cornhole Board – Independence Day Edition

    July 8, 2023 /

    I took this photograph in Boston on July 4th, and for me, it captures a small but telling fragment of the day’s celebrations. No fireworks, no parade—just a simple cornhole board dressed in the American flag, surrounded by scattered red and blue beanbags on a sunlit brick pavement. It’s an image that speaks to the quieter, more tactile traditions that sit alongside the grand spectacle. Compositionally, I let the board occupy the upper right of the frame, its diagonal placement adding a sense of movement and inviting the viewer’s eye from the legs toward the target hole. The wooden box in the foreground balances the frame and anchors the bottom…

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    Andrea Monti

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    Where Do I Go From Here?

    October 13, 2016

    Love is like a flower

    May 18, 2013

    A Spanish Long Jumper

    September 11, 2022
  • Bruxelles,  Colour,  Daily photo,  Downtown,  Jewelry,  Winter

    Floating

    February 5, 2023 /

    This image was born out of a fascination with stillness in the midst of implied movement. The mannequin — suspended, curled, caught in an almost foetal position — seems to drift within a capsule that looks as though it could be orbiting somewhere far beyond Earth. The large, circular light behind it could be a porthole, a hatch, or simply a stage light; its blinding white obscures what might be beyond, giving the scene a surreal, detached quality. Technically, the biggest challenge was exposure. The extreme contrast between the brilliant backlight and the darker figure risked losing detail on both ends. I chose to protect the highlights, letting the shadows…

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    Andrea Monti

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    Play It Again, Sam!

    April 13, 2017

    Springtime

    April 23, 2015

    Staring At The Infinite

    August 22, 2013
  • Bruxelles,  Colour,  Daily photo,  Fashion Shops,  Seasons,  Winter

    Cleaning the Tabernacle

    November 26, 2022 /

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    Andrea Monti

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    Lost Bottles

    January 27, 2014

    Friendship is Forever

    March 6, 2014

    Urban Totem

    April 29, 2014
  • Bookstores,  Colour,  Daily photo,  Tokyo

    Tsutaya Bookstore@Ginza

    December 6, 2020 /

    Photographed inside the Tsutaya Bookstore in Ginza, Tokyo, this image celebrates the bookstore as a curated stage, where books are not simply stored but presented as artefacts. The frame is dense yet controlled, offering layer upon layer of shelves, display tables, and oversized art books. The eye is immediately drawn to the centre, where a large black-and-white wildlife photograph dominates—its scale and high contrast making it the de facto anchor of the composition. CompositionThe photographer has worked with a classic layered approach. Foreground tables angle toward the viewer, drawing them deeper into the mid-ground where the hero book sits open, and then further into the background shelves which fill the…

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    Andrea Monti

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    @Rome Maker Faire – 6. A Statue(?)

    October 21, 2014

    A Vessel

    December 18, 2015

    Seeking Directions – Where Do I Go From Here?

    September 10, 2013
  • Bookstores,  Colour,  Daily photo,  Kyoto,  Summer

    Dai Shodo@Kyoto

    December 2, 2020 /

    Kyoto ‘s Teramachi-dori is full of suprises. Amidst shops of the most different kind and attire, booklovers can find this small gem. This is Dai-Shodo, a quiet print shop tucked into a narrow Kyoto street. I stepped inside on a grey afternoon with no particular plan. The light was soft, filtered through old windows and the hushed presence of paper. Everything in the shop seemed to lean inwards—frames, shelves, stairs—as if holding its breath in reverence. What struck me most wasn’t the prints themselves, but how they were displayed. Ukiyo-e woodblocks and vintage ephemera layered on every surface, propped rather than hung, as if caught mid-conversation. The stairway invited you up…

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    Andrea Monti

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    Wrecked Hull

    February 14, 2014

    Content Creators

    July 20, 2023

    Humannequin

    January 10, 2013
  • Autumn,  Colour,  Daily photo,  Fashion Shops,  People,  PhotoCritics,  Rome

    Deadly Bored

    January 6, 2020 /

    Once again, the meaning of this picture is counter intuitive and “made up” by the composition. The scene is seen from the perspective of the mannequin: at the end of a hard day spent sitting on the street-front, it (or he?) looks deadly bored and tries to kill the time before the shop closes by casually looking at the next passerby. The directional effect (from the mannequin to the passerby) is achieved by the diagonal connecting the tip of the hat, the feet of the mannequin and the cast of the shadow. Taken as a whole, these elements drive the eye from the mannequin to the persons and not vice-versa.

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    Andrea Monti

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    Horizon Bending, Again

    April 28, 2014

    Quis custodies

    January 26, 2013

    After a Tough Day

    January 30, 2016
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  Jewelry,  Observer Bias,  PhotoCritics,  Rome,  Winter

    Keep Out!

    November 30, 2019 /

    This photo conveys a message of “rejection”: first, a security guard who blocks access to the jewellery and then a signal of a prohibition of access reinforces the concept, thanks to a composition that guides the eye to a diagonal that goes from the bottom to the top, from left to right. Obviously, there is nothing “true” about all this because the overall result is the result of the organization of the spaces and the management of the perspective that allow connecting semantically elements that, in reality, have no relationship between them. It would have been enough to shoot from a different angle – or not juxtapose the security guard…

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    Andrea Monti

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    Photopanning in Rome

    December 3, 2019

    A Stop in Reggio Emilia

    February 21, 2024

    The Ubiquitous Mobile

    July 14, 2016
  • Autumn,  Colour,  Daily photo,  Downtown,  People,  Restaurants&Bar,  Rome

    Beer or Spritz?

    November 1, 2019 /

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    Andrea Monti

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    Cornermen

    June 4, 2013

    Inside a Master Luthier’s Workshop

    July 24, 2025

    Cold Stuff

    November 28, 2015
  • Cities,  Colour,  Daily photo,  Nagoya,  People,  Restaurants&Bar,  Seasons,  Summer

    Fast Food Loneliness in Nagoya…

    July 17, 2019 /

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    Andrea Monti

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    Stand-up, Sugar!

    March 8, 2014

    Cleaning the Tabernacle

    November 26, 2022

    Portrait of a Perinatal Cardiologist

    July 11, 2014
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  Garages&Labs

    Harley-Davidson: Chrome And Presence

    December 24, 2018 /

    I shot this in a garage, mid-morning, using natural light filtered through a high side window. The intention was not documentation but compression—pulling a Harley-Davidson’s surface tension into a single diagonal, letting the chrome dominate the field without drowning in reflection. I placed the lens close, short telephoto range, aperture wide enough to throw the background car into softness without losing the suggestion of shape. The Porsche headlights were a deliberate inclusion. They echo the round mirrors and instrument cluster. Mechanically different machines, visually rhymed. The tank occupies the lower third, its curve breaking the flow of lines from lever to throttle. Shadow and reflection cross it diagonally, giving volume…

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    Andrea Monti

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    5 frames exploring the Sporting Gun Culture in Italy

    April 15, 2025

    Reluctant

    November 11, 2014

    A Rudder

    February 19, 2021
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  Parks,  Restaurants&Bar,  Spring,  Tokyo

    StreetPizza@Ueno Park

    August 4, 2018 /

    I took this photograph during a humid summer afternoon in Ueno Park, Tokyo, a few metres away from the art museums and temples that draw both locals and tourists. Amid the buzz of the park’s cultural gravity, I was drawn instead to this fleeting vignette of street food preparation—quiet, unassuming, yet visually dense. What first caught my eye was the can of tomato pulp, “A Pummarola ‘Ncopp,” planted squarely in the middle of the frame like an improvised totem. Its bold Neapolitan red, combined with the colloquial script and graphic of tomatoes, adds a deliberate contrast to the surrounding functional, almost makeshift textures. Everything else in the composition plays a…

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    Andrea Monti

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    Bronine Volkit Camera Hub. Mixed feelings

    November 30, 2021

    Turiddu repeals Santuzza

    November 19, 2022

    The Ipad Shooter. Who needs a Nikon D4 anymore?

    November 3, 2013
  • Bookstores,  Colour,  Daily photo,  Summer,  Tokyo

    Shrinking Knowledge Into A Small Brain

    July 24, 2018 /

    The composition presented itself almost too perfectly: two heavy book presses clamped around vintage volumes, framed by old clocks, writing tools, and artefacts of once-essential objects. It was in a display window of Itoya Ginza—a stationery temple in Tokyo—and the irony wasn’t subtle. Books literally compressed, as time ticks above them. Nothing staged, everything intentional. I shot this straight on to preserve the museum-like symmetry. The verticals are deliberate: spines, handles, clock faces, and the clean architectural grid outside. The lighting inside was soft but layered—enough to pull texture out of the pressed leather bindings and chrome bolts. ISO pushed slightly to handle shadows beneath the glass shelf, but noise…

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    Andrea Monti

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    The Expired Film Series – Episode 4 – Ferrania Solaris 100 – Dec. 2006 shot in August 2023

    September 3, 2023

    None of Your Business

    October 2, 2013

    Last Wing Down

    February 26, 2015
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  Parks,  People,  Restaurants&Bar,  Summer,  Tokyo

    Pizza Maker@Ueno’s Park

    June 6, 2018 /

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    Andrea Monti

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    Hanging Bottle

    October 11, 2014

    Toxic Waste in Open Air

    August 31, 2021

    Busy

    January 8, 2013
  • Bruxelles,  Colour,  Daily photo,  Restaurants&Bar,  Winter

    Menu Meditation

    February 16, 2018 /

    There’s a particular silence in cafés just before ordering. That moment when the cold air from outside still clings to your coat, and all attention narrows to laminated options and the quiet negotiations of hunger. This was taken on a grey afternoon in Brussels. A couple sits across from each other, each reading their own menu as if studying for an exam. No phones. No talking. Just decisions to be made: sweet or savoury, warm or cold, this or that. It’s a familiar ritual, yet rarely observed this closely. What drew me in wasn’t the scene’s drama—there was none—but its quietness. The soft concentration on their faces, the gentle lean…

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    Andrea Monti

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    A Seagull

    May 10, 2021

    The Scooter

    March 1, 2013

    Emanuele Cavallucci. The New Italian Pro Boxing Welterweight Champion

    March 9, 2019
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  Fashion Shops,  Summer,  Venice

    The Silent Ceremony

    November 2, 2017 /

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    Andrea Monti

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    Slow Walk at Mulberry St.

    January 16, 2014

    Out Of Focus, Once More

    October 6, 2014

    Stairway to Hell

    January 9, 2022
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  People,  Portraits,  Restaurants&Bar,  Summer,  Venice

    Damned Pidgeons…

    October 8, 2017 /

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    Andrea Monti

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    Nico Cilli Band Live@Città Sant’Angelo

    October 23, 2013

    The Silent Listeners

    December 27, 2013

    A Master Luthier in his lab…

    May 14, 2013
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  People,  Restaurants&Bar,  Summer,  Venice

    The Aperitif

    October 5, 2017 /

    This image was taken quickly, just as I passed the window. What struck me wasn’t the act of drinking — which is unremarkable in itself — but the multiple surfaces at play. A woman in profile, lifting her glass; a man absorbed in his phone; reflections of pedestrians I didn’t see until after the shutter clicked. And then the writing — bold, cartoonish, childish even — floating across the image like subtitles with no film. I shot through the glass deliberately, without trying to erase myself or the distractions. The transparency becomes part of the narrative. The drawing on the window, playful and crude, contrasts with the subdued tones inside:…

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    Andrea Monti

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    A Little Of Thailand In Rome

    August 3, 2013

    Without Glasses @ via del Corso

    January 25, 2016

    Sky Patrol

    September 12, 2021
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  Garages&Labs,  Odds,  Summer

    Claws of Fire

    September 27, 2017 /

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    Andrea Monti

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    The Solitude of Power

    May 6, 2018

    Stripes of Light and Decay

    March 2, 2015

    Carabinieri:To Serve And Protect

    February 8, 2016
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  Lines,  Restaurants&Bar,  Streets&Squares,  Summer,  Venice,  Visual

    Seats

    September 11, 2017 /

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    Andrea Monti

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    Not A Rorschach Inkblot

    December 24, 2017

    An Old Boxing Gym

    February 22, 2016

    A Different Passion…

    June 12, 2016
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  Restaurants&Bar,  Summer,  Tokyo

    Restaurant or Killing House?

    July 18, 2017 /

    Taken in Tokyo, this photograph shows the façade of Musashi, a ramen restaurant, but the presentation is far from the warm, inviting atmosphere one might expect from an eatery. At night, under the glare of its signage, the scene takes on an ambiguous mood. The bold kanji, stark in black against an overexposed white panel, dominate the frame’s upper third, flanked by circular emblems. Below, the silhouette of a swordsman — rendered in cut-out form with glowing characters down the centre — adds an almost cinematic tension, more reminiscent of a samurai film poster than a dinner venue. From a compositional standpoint, the frame is split into strong horizontal bands:…

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    Andrea Monti

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    Multiple Meaning

    December 10, 2013

    Italian National Skating Championship 2019

    February 8, 2019

    A Frame Within a Frame Within a Frame

    April 23, 2023
  • Colour,  Daily photo,  People,  Restaurants&Bar,  Summer,  Tokyo

    Every Single Day

    June 28, 2017 /

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    Andrea Monti

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    Pentax k-5 And The Aquapack 458

    August 15, 2014

    Full Moon

    May 9, 2017

    Boat Dock Bumpers

    October 26, 2014
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