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Coffee Doesn’t Need a Table. It Needs a Moment
I didn’t need to wait for this shot to compose itself—it already had. The empty espresso cup, still fresh with crema residue, sat on the curve of the car roof like it belonged there. No fuss, no coaster, just placed with the kind of instinct that only comes from repetition. Mechanics don’t schedule coffee breaks. They take them where they stand. The car’s soft metallic paint reflected just enough light to form a clean, curved foreground. I used a wide aperture to isolate the cup, letting the background—raised vehicles, industrial stairs, soft chaos—bleed into blur. The contrast between the sharp plastic rim and the defocused scene behind it is where…
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A Mini At The Garage
In motorsport, the story is often told on the track—in the blur of speed, the roar of engines, the chase of the apex. But there is another narrative, quieter and equally vital, found in the moments before a car is ready to move again. This photograph of an old Mini Cooper captures that in-between state: the stillness of a machine awaiting service. The perspective is deliberate. We see the car from the rear, centred on the whip antenna and the roofline, framed by the muted geometry of the workshop. Reflections curve across the back glass, warping the ceiling lights into soft arcs—a reminder of the interplay between machine and environment.…
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The Pizza’s Journey
From the oven to the the bench…
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Kime in Photography
While I was setting the aperture and the focus zone to shoot from the hip the subjects shifted the position of their heads and I missed the shot. Lesson learned: I decided to take this picture too late. I was aware of the composition a good ten seconds before, but I idled in uncertainty. When I finally resolved myself to shoot, I did everything on a hurry a I missed the shot. I definitely need to develop Kime in photography.
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Do Not Touch
The sign was the first thing I saw — handwritten in blue felt-tip, barely taped to the surface: “NON TOCCARE! grazie.”No threat, no fine, just polite instruction. But it said more than warning signs ever could. A gesture of trust. Or desperation. Or both. This old cash register sat alone in the corner of a counter, no longer in use, no longer even fully functional by the look of it. Keys faded, paint chipped, buttons smoothed by time and repetition. It didn’t scream vintage charm — it whispered I’ve seen things. I shot it in available indoor light, pushing the ISO enough to recover the midtones without drowning in noise.…
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Upcoming Call
A moment inside a café where a man sits alone at a small round table covered with a floral tablecloth. His posture is relaxed, one leg crossed over the other, as he holds a smartphone in his hand and looks toward the large window beside him. The leather jacket and muted colours of his clothing contrast with the warm wooden chairs and patterned fabrics that furnish the interior.
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A quiet watchdog or long-time friend who enjoys some rest??
I was walking through a narrow street in Rome when I saw him—stretched across the threshold of a dusty antiques shop like a soft barricade. Head down, ears flat, but not asleep. Not quite. He was watching with the kind of calm that doesn’t need to prove anything. The Leica M9 was set to zone focus, aperture around f/5.6, and I didn’t have time to fuss. I framed, stepped slightly left to catch the reflections in the glass, and took the shot. The light was diffuse—no harsh shadows, just a steady wash of warmth from the tungsten bulbs inside, softened further by the grey sky outside. The exposure held nicely,…
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An interesting reading
To seat or no to seat?
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The three musket(b)eer
Guess who’s Porthos?
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A party that shall never come
A dress and a bag waiting to be sold. Will the party ever take place?
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The Icecream is ready to be served
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Tables and Chairs, at Night
I was drawn to the repetition in this scene — a narrow path lined with tables and chairs, each set lit by a pool of light from the wall-mounted lamps. The rain had just stopped, and the wet stone reflected the glow, creating a subtle tonal contrast that runs like a silver ribbon through the composition. I chose to frame it at an angle that emphasises the recession into darkness, the line of tables pulling the viewer’s eye deeper into the image. The rhythm is regular but not mechanical; the slight variations in chair placement and the occasional break in symmetry prevent it from feeling sterile. The lamps provide natural…
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Fantozzi’s chairs
They look innocent enough — two soft, shapeless seats next to a rattan table, tucked under a wall in some coastal bar. But the title gives it away: Fracchia’s Chairs. And if you know the name, you know exactly what kind of scene this is. Giandomenico Fracchia, as played by Paolo Villaggio in the 1970s, was the tragicomic soul of bureaucratic Italy: servile, stammering, utterly at the mercy of authority. There’s a legendary sketch in which he’s being questioned by his boss — unable to sit still on a chair so round and formless it’s practically a trap. And here it is again, reimagined in polyurethane and branded with Nastro Azzurro. The…
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Still Together
Still together, like the very first day. I saw them before they saw me — leaning slightly towards each other, their posture neither rigid nor slouched, but comfortably suspended in the shared gravity of the table between them. The wine glasses, half-filled with rosé, spoke of time already spent; the unopened bottle on the side suggested more still to come. From a compositional standpoint, I worked with the geometry of the setting — the square table, the vertical lines of the wall, and the quiet interruption of the stone column — to anchor the frame. The couple sit on opposite sides, yet the line of sight between them is unbroken,…
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The missing guest
This image unfolded quietly, almost too politely — three men in jackets and ties sitting at a table clearly set for four. The elegance of the setup, from the pressed tablecloth to the carefully arranged centrepiece, clashes subtly with the anticipation suspended in their posture. Nobody makes eye contact. One reads the menu, the others look downward, pretending focus. The empty chair becomes the central subject without needing to move. Framing was tight on purpose. I let the olive oil bottle in the foreground stand, blurring into obscurity and giving some depth and texture to an otherwise sharply focused core. That slight intrusion also reinforces the perspective: I wasn’t part…
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Waiting for a Future to Tell
Behind the slightly dusty glass of an old tobacco shop window, a box of tarot cards stands upright, holding its ground with a quiet dignity. The label reads taotl, the colours still vivid despite the years: red flames, green leaves, a central emblem that seems both protective and dangerous. Beneath, the name Masenghini anchors it in a very specific history of Italian card-making, a craft now mostly relegated to collectors and the nostalgic. Around it, other objects share the same slow fate: a light-blue school exercise book titled Quaderno, some patterned boxes, a rolled cylinder of bright turquoise paper. Everyday relics, all bathed in the soft, uneven light that only old glass and time…
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Late-afternoon’s snack
…who knows what will be served for dinner?
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Hard Spam
Sometimes spam doesn’t hide in your inbox. It glows in a pharmacy window. Shot on a quiet evening walk, this storefront display in Rome—or somewhere very much like it—caught my attention with the subtlety of a neon bullhorn. A perfectly literal interpretation of hard advertising: Viagra, Levitra, Cialis. Bold red font, urgent discounts, official decree cited. Street-level pharma meets street-level comedy. The scene is absurdly human. Framed by a closed shutter and a lonely Gaviscon box, the paper sign is taped like a last-minute school notice, but the message is anything but shy. There’s no algorithm, no clickbait. Just unapologetic, front-facing capital letters offering a prescription-strength punchline. It’s spam—but analogue. No filters,…
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A Bitter Sweet
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The Last Puff, Before the Kitchen Opens
He leans into the corrugated shutter like it’s the only stable thing in his world. Dressed in pristine whites, but already marked by the day’s fatigue, this cook steals a few quiet moments with his cigarette and his phone. The street is empty, the restaurants still closed, and everything about the frame holds a soft tension—the pause before the fire and oil, the clang of metal, and the heat of service. What struck me first was the geometry. The vertical roll-up doors, the receding line of storefronts, the bricks underfoot—all form a corridor that isolates him visually and narratively. I composed slightly off-centre to echo the disconnection between his world…
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Lunchtime
It’s cold, but for a while it is better stay outside. The light was sharp and low, the kind that cuts through the chill and gives everything a brief sense of warmth. The group gathered around the table, half in shadow, half in sunlight is a familiar Roman scene: conversation, coffee, and the kind of pause that feels both ordinary and essential.
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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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Multitasking
This frame is one of those candid catches where the absurd quietly sits inside the ordinary. Two men, mid-meal, are absorbed in their respective worlds: the one in the centre toggling between a phone call and a glass of wine, the other leaning forward in conversation. The table is cluttered with the civilised chaos of lunch — sparkling water, empty glasses awaiting purpose, a scattering of breadsticks. The composition is built almost like a play: the seated figures as protagonists, the window behind them acting as both set and light source. That window, however, is a double-edged sword. The strong backlight pushed the dynamic range to its limit, forcing me…
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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…
