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Aren’t Tapas Spanish?
Wandering through Venice, I came across this signboard outside a small eatery, its hand-painted letters enthusiastically proclaiming Cicchetti – Typical Venetian Food – Tapas. The first two lines make perfect sense: cicchetti are indeed a hallmark of Venetian gastronomy, those small, flavourful bites served in bàcari across the city. But then comes the curious third line: Tapas. A word so rooted in Spanish culinary identity that seeing it coupled with “typical Venetian” is enough to raise an eyebrow — and perhaps a smile. From a photographic perspective, the image is a straightforward yet effective piece of documentary work. The sign is centred and fills the frame, allowing the viewer to…
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Waiting For The Patrons – 2
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Waiting For The Patrons – 1
Rows of empty tables fill the frame, each one neatly set with glasses, cutlery, and the small black silhouettes of salt and pepper shakers. The chairs—red and blue—alternate without any strict pattern, giving the scene both order and disorder at once. The repetition draws the eye deep into the image, yet the absence of people leaves it eerily still. In the background, columns rise like structural sentinels, breaking the rhythm of the tables. Behind them, white sheets hang, blocking whatever lies beyond. These barriers, makeshift and plain, add to the sense that this place is on pause—prepared for service, yet suspended in anticipation. The light is soft, diffused, and without…
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The Street Photographer Dilemma: Film or Digital
To me Street-Photography is digital. I missed this shot because I wasn’t able to properly focus my full-manual kit, as I would have do with an average digital camera. There is no point in wasting film in an highly fault-rate activity such as Street Photography.
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A Lonely Table
I took this photograph through a glass window — not by oversight, but with full intention. The resulting layers were unpredictable, and that was the point. The sea outside, the perfectly set table inside, and the accidental human form reflected between them, all merged into a single ambiguous frame. At first glance, it’s just another seaside restaurant, waiting for guests. But spend a little time and the structure begins to unravel. The light played into my hands: late afternoon, strong enough to shape the objects on the table, yet soft enough to allow the reflections to register without dominating. The glass acted both as barrier and canvas. What you’re looking…
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Busy In A Call
Shot handheld at night, available light only. I leaned into the blur and grain—ISO pushed to 3200, wide open at f/2. The result isn’t clean. It’s fractured, noisy, restless. Which fits. The moment wasn’t about stillness. Foreground holds two figures, tight in the frame. One in profile, on the phone, thumb pressed to lips, nails yellow against a black handset. The other’s back to camera, only form and volume—hair and jacket. Behind them, the café scene unfolds: overlapping bodies, light bouncing off glass, talk and gestures suspended mid-motion. Focus was shallow and uncertain by design. The camera caught the caller’s cheek, soft but distinguishable. The rest bleeds into motion. Technical…
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Message Check Before Breakfast
This shot came together in the quiet seconds between espresso orders and the whir of the barista’s machine. I didn’t ask him to pose — I never do in moments like these. His posture, leaning forward, eyes fixed on the screen, scarf still clutched tight from the cold outside, told the full story. The light was unforgiving in its neutrality — ceiling fixtures and flat fluorescents don’t do any favours, but sometimes they just let the environment breathe. I pushed the ISO higher than I’d normally like, sacrificing a bit of cleanliness for immediacy. Still, the rendering holds: detail in the wool coat, a soft drop-off in the background, and…
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A Banner
I photographed this weathered sign for its layered character. The hand-painted letters, once bold, now bear the marks of time—faded paint, chipped wood, and a patina that speaks of decades of exposure. Its message is straightforward, advertising a taverna and pointing to an address, but as an object it is also a record of vernacular design, where function and personality coexist. The composition was kept simple: a tight frame, centred to let the text dominate without distraction. By eliminating the surrounding wall almost entirely, the sign becomes the sole subject, demanding attention to its texture and imperfections. The small decorative leaves and the script at the bottom break the rigidity…
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A Beverage Dispenser
The scene is dim, almost swallowed by shadow, yet two islands of light remain. At the centre of the frame, a refrigerated Coca-Cola display glows cold blue-white, its bottles and cans lined like soldiers on parade. Beside it, an older vending machine hums softly, its red housing lit from within by a warmer, almost nostalgic orange. Together they form a diptych of light—past and present vending, side by side. This photograph thrives on contrasts: the artificial chill of the drink cooler against the tungsten warmth of the coin-operated relic, the corporate gloss of branded red against the creeping darkness of a closed café. In the far right, upturned chairs signal…
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Ready For Lunch
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Efesto’s New Production Line
Just behind the barbecue master, the heat rose sharply and the smoke thickened into a shifting wall. The man stood at the centre of it, absorbed in the intensity of roasting slices of lambs, his back straight, shoulders tight, arms moving with controlled force. There was no theatrical pose—only concentration. From this angle, the scene feels more like a workshop than a stage.
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Ready for lunch
An osteria table waits, set with blue cloth, inverted glasses, and neatly placed napkins. The chalkboard menu leans forward in the foreground, announcing “Pranzo Veloce” with its modest prices and straightforward promises. Chairs stand empty, the cobbled street quiet, yet the scene already holds the expectation of voices, cutlery, and conversation. Composition divides into two parts: the angled menu board on the left, pulling the eye with text and bold frame, and the table on the right, stable and orderly. The brick wall and wooden door in the background add texture and intimacy, rooting the setting firmly in an Italian street. The balance of objects, slightly off-centre, leaves space for…
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Red Curtains
It caught me as I was leaving a small trattoria, the kind where wine glasses reflect years of conversation and meals stretch long into the evening. The curtain—the protagonist here—isn’t just a physical separator. It’s a thin veil between what’s public and what should remain private. I let the fabric dominate the composition. Its translucent quality distorts the background just enough to suggest, not show. The folds create a rhythm, a vertical cadence against the more chaotic, lived-in blur of the interior. The exposure was tricky. Balancing the warmth of incandescent lighting with the saturation of the red was key—push too far, and the tones bleed; underexpose, and the shadows…
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Conversations, Silences, and Street Life
I took this photo on a market day in a small Italian town—one of those moments where nothing happens, and yet everything is happening. The street café was squeezed between stalls and pedestrian flow, and I noticed how time seemed to pass differently at each table. In the foreground, two women, elegantly aged, sat in full conversation, flanked by shopping bags and sun-faded handbags. Behind them, two men—one turned, one leaning—observed, disengaged but present. A quiet choreography of glances, posture, distance. The scene reads like a layered composition. Foreground, midground, background—each one active, but narratively distinct. I framed the shot from an angle that allowed these strata to settle into…
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Relax At The Rapallo’s Marina
I remember walking past this café terrace at the marina in Rapallo and being drawn to the contrasting energies it contained. In the foreground, a woman in a red dress sits absorbed in her magazine, her body language completely self-contained. Just beyond her, a small group of older men and women are animated in conversation, their faces alive with expression. The scene felt like two parallel worlds inhabiting the same space—private quiet and social exchange—separated only by a few metres of wicker furniture. The colour red became the unifying element. The woman’s dress, the handbag on the sofa beside her, and the clothing of the woman facing away from the…
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The Chess Players’ Summer Nest
There’s a rhythm to afternoons like this. The sun heavy in the air, the shade of the arcade offering just enough relief to keep men rooted to their chairs, eyes fixed on the chequerboard battlefield. The setting is unmistakably local — a small bar spilling its life out onto the pavement, Coca-Cola chairs scarred by years of use, walls patched and peeling. Everything here is part of the game, even the hum of conversation from the tables beyond. What makes the photograph work is its layering. The first plane is the duel: two players hunched, arms folded, eyes locked on the chessboard, their bodies mirroring each other in stubborn concentration.…
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Once A God
Poseidon emerges from above the sign like a relic of popular imagination—muscular torso, crown, and trident, his authority now reduced to advertising. Below him, the oversized fish and bold lettering spell out his name with certainty, though the plaster figure betrays wear, paint faded and surfaces weathered. It is not divinity but decoration, a reminder of how myth survives in commerce. Composition stresses perspective: the low angle forces the viewer to look up, as if paying homage, yet the clean blue sky strips the scene of grandeur, leaving only figure and name. The fish’s body stretches across the lower frame as a pedestal, while Poseidon’s arms, frozen mid-gesture, create diagonals…
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Mulberry Street, When Benito II Was Still There…
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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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A Great Marketing Stunt
Until June 1998 the Italian telephone system didn’t require to dial-in a prefix to place a local call, but this banner still lasts as nothing have changed. A great way to tell people that “we were there before…”
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Urban Totem
Once upon a time, a totem helped the soul to get in touch with gods. Nowadays it helps the stomach to be fed.
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Red Wine Makes Good Blood…
I made this image at the end of a long lunch — the kind where conversation lingers long after the plates are cleared, and the table becomes less of a place to eat and more a canvas of what just happened. The residue of red wine had bled into the paper surface, leaving behind those familiar circular stains — not accidental, not staged, just there. And I leaned in, glass still in hand, and shot. Technically, this is an exercise in distortion and proximity. I used a wide lens, close focus, and a shallow depth of field. The resulting visual field is warped, but purposefully. You can see the sweep…
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Mid-Morning Break at Place Jourdan
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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…
