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An urgent phone call?
Using a tele (200 mm) allowed me to take the picture but the long focal didn’t separate the planes as a 50 mm would. Truth is that – in these condition – I would hardly have been close enough to obtain the visual effect I was looking for, but the alternative was not to take the shot at all.
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The 365th Shot: Between Sacred and Profane
“Between the Sacred and Profane” is the 365th picture that I’ve posted on this blog and it is the end of a one-year project where I made a point of publishing one picture per day. When, exactly 356 days ago, I decided to start I couldn’t imagine what would have been happened. I became deeply involved into exploring different genres and styles, covering big live events for a music magazine, cinema and arts awards ceremonies, street-photography, portraits, photojournalism and sport events. I went in for a couple of contests and started giving (for free, as I promised) seminars about the rights of the (street)photographers. Of course I don’t do photography…
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When the Rubbish Basket is full…
I made this photograph with the lens barely above the surface. The irony hit me only later: a crumpled, rusting bin—designed to contain waste—floating free, stripped of purpose, drifting like a rejected artefact in a river that had no interest in borders or rules. This wasn’t a chase-the-light moment. It was more of a document-what’s-happening moment. But even in documentary photography, composition matters. The crumpled bin sits dead-centre, emerging from the water like a reluctant symbol. The surrounding wash of grey-brown is indistinct by design—an oppressive field of repetition, without texture or detail, forcing the viewer back to that sodden, disfigured centre. Technically, I shot this with a long lens…
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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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Holding Against the Tide
Time was running short and felt compressed. The tide was coming in faster than expected, and the sailor’s movements had lost any trace of routine. Urgency reshaped posture, gesture, and balance. The man is bent forward, his body pulled into the rigging as if negotiating directly with the boat rather than controlling it. His grip is firm but not elegant. There is no choreography here—only necessity. The frame excludes his face entirely. The choice was not deliberate, however it didn’t matter, since identity is secondary; what mattered was the physical negotiation between human weight, rope tension, and a changing shoreline.
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When the Tide Recedes
This scene struck me as more than just a visual curiosity—it posed a question. What doesn’t belong here: the boat or the car? The early evening light had just enough character to lift detail off the flat grey of the pavement and tease texture from the bark of the bare trees. The DA 50-135* handled the compression beautifully, allowing me to frame the boat prominently while holding the background activity—a fire truck, scattered people, and that lone parked car—in a shallow but still informative focus plane. I appreciated the restrained dynamic range of the K-5’s APS-C sensor here. The muted palette lends the image an autumnal melancholy, without needing the…
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St. Peter in Background
St. Peter and Castel S. Angelo as seen from the fourth floor of the Corte di cassazione (Italian Supreme Court.)
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The Straycat
Alterness becomes second nature, for those who live on the streets.
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The Empty Stage
There’s a stillness in this image that’s almost unnerving — the kind of stillness you find after the audience has gone home, the performers have left, and the sea has reclaimed the soundscape. The photograph presents what looks like a small, weather-worn platform facing the horizon, its rusted surface marked by time and salt. In front of it, the patterned paving stones draw the eye directly forward, as though you’re being ushered to take your place before the infinite backdrop of sky and water. Compositionally, the image is disciplined and symmetrical without feeling sterile. The vanishing lines of the pavement and the horizon are set dead-centre, pulling you into the…
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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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Wrecked Ship
There’s a heaviness to this photograph, not just in the physical mass of the vessel but in the sense of time etched into its surface. The frame is filled almost entirely by the side of the wreck, the wood weathered to grey and streaked with rust-red, algae-green, and salt-white. The colours are muted but carry a richness born of decay — pigments laid down not by brush but by years of exposure, water, and neglect. From a compositional standpoint, the choice to exclude the horizon and most of the surrounding context forces the viewer to confront the ship as an object, almost abstract in its texture. The eye moves along…
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A Sailor’s Knot
I was drawn to this image for the way it captures the physicality of work at sea without showing the sea itself. The coiled rope, weathered and darkened, sits heavy against the chipped paint and rust stains of the boat’s surface. The knot is both functional and sculptural — a product of necessity rather than ornament — yet it commands its place in the frame with the authority of an intentional design. From a compositional standpoint, the photograph relies on a strong division between planes. The horizontal band of the boat’s edge anchors the top third, while the ropes cut diagonally through the frame, breaking the stillness. This interplay of…
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Empty Chairs in the Tuileries
Paris in the rain changes its pace. The air thickens, the sounds dampen, and spaces usually alive with chatter take on a hushed, suspended quality. Here, in the Jardin des Tuileries, the iconic green metal chairs gather loosely at the edge of the fountain. They are arranged without intention—angled differently, backs turned, no symmetry to suggest a shared moment. It’s as if the conversation ended abruptly and the participants slipped away, leaving only their seats to remember the posture of their presence. The wet ground darkens the green paint, the armrests glisten with a thin film of water, and the fountain continues its arc in the background, indifferent. The frame…
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Forgotten
If you don’t want to bring fresh flowers, at least remove the old ones…
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Walking at Night, in Milan
There’s a peculiar calm in Milan once the crowds have dispersed and the city settles into its late-night rhythm. This photograph captures that quiet moment — a lone figure walking through the porticoed gallery, flanked by shuttered shops and covered windows, lit by the cool precision of artificial light. The receding row of lamps creates a tunnel effect, pulling the eye straight down the corridor, while the solitary pedestrian provides both a human scale and a focal point. From a compositional standpoint, the image benefits from strong leading lines. The symmetry of the architecture is slightly offset by the human element, keeping the frame from becoming sterile. The repetition of…
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Out for a While
… or gone forever?
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Street Compass Rose
There’s something both poetic and ironic about finding a compass rose embedded in the tarmac — a relic of navigation sitting just a few metres from a working fishing port, in an age where most people rely on satellites to find the nearest café. I came across this one early in the morning, when the sun was low and the light had that burnished quality that makes asphalt glisten. The framing here was deliberate: I chose to crouch low, letting the compass rose dominate the foreground, while the fishing boats in the distance anchor the background in place. This low perspective exaggerates the texture of the cracked road surface, contrasting…
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Stairway to nothing
It was the kind of place you don’t really notice. A narrow passage, cracked walls, peeling paint, dim light. The kind of corridor you pass through without stopping. Unless you’re carrying a camera—and a little curiosity. I called this frame Stairway to Nothing when I first saw it on the screen. The name came unprompted. It just fit. The stairs are real, but lead to… what, exactly? A dead-end, a blank wall, maybe a half-forgotten door. You get the sense there was once purpose here—function, traffic, even a rhythm. Now it’s just remnants. A railing to hold on to, steps still intact, pots of green fighting back against the concrete. This wasn’t…
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Come on in…
What will you find at the end of the corridor? The frame pulls you inward. The eye enters through the shadowed foreground, past the blurred figure standing half in, half out of the light, and begins its slow walk down the corridor. The walls, cracked and weathered, carry the patina of time. Arched ceilings recede rhythmically, each arch framing the next, each doorway leading you further inside. Along the path, framed photographs lean against the walls, their colours softened by the dim light. They are not hung with formality; they rest casually, like travellers waiting to be claimed. The projector to the right hints at moving images, yet here, everything feels…
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Reminiscenses From The Past
Lost in memories, while the world turns.
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The Casual Observer
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Peeping the Misery
A rough opening in a white wall becomes the frame. The edges are jagged, still bearing the scars of whatever blow created them. Through it, the eye is led into another world—a dusty, abandoned space where sunlight slices across the ground. On the floor lies a tangle of debris: fragments of cloth, splinters, and what seems to be a torn banner, its once-bright colours now dulled. The text on it is broken, unreadable, a language interrupted. In the background, shapes blur into shadow—remnants of furniture, perhaps, or the skeletal remains of another wall. This photograph is about looking in without stepping in. The viewer is held at a distance, forced…
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Garbage Collection
