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The Lost Hotel
I photographed this derelict façade in an Italian town on a walk that started with no intention and ended with this frame. “Albergo Aterno,” barely legible beneath a coat of turquoise decay, is what’s left of a forgotten hotel. I didn’t need to know its history to feel the abandonment radiating from every peeled layer of plaster. The frame is pulled tight—the architecture becomes a subject in itself, the wires and conduit lines accidentally composing a crude symmetry that holds the chaos together. This isn’t a pretty picture, and that’s the point. The scene punishes clean aesthetics. Harsh light from the afternoon sun exacerbates the texture—flaking walls, rusted metal, and…
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Fishing Shelter Under The Bridge
Photographs like this one always pull me in—not for their glamour, but for their quiet, unvarnished truth. This image, titled Fishing Shelter Under a Bridge, captures a space that seems to exist on the fringes: part makeshift workspace, part refuge, part survival mechanism. The fishing net suspended in the frame is not the tool of a hobbyist, but a means to secure food, a reminder of the precariousness of life for some. From a compositional perspective, the photograph is anchored by a strong sense of depth. The viewer’s eye is naturally drawn from the shaded, cluttered foreground toward the brighter, open water and the moored boats in the distance. The…
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Lost Cellos
There’s something unsettling about musical instruments left alone. Cellos, in particular, carry a visual weight even when silent — the curve of the body, the arch of the bridge, the scroll’s delicate twist. In this scene, set against the pale facade of an Italian street, they lie scattered, leaning awkwardly against bright red plastic chairs, as though abandoned mid-performance. I was drawn to the tension between elegance and neglect. The geometry of the composition came naturally — the red chairs punctuating the frame, the arc of the white wall detail acting almost like a silent proscenium arch. The absence of people intensifies the stillness, making the instruments feel orphaned. From…
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Waiting For The Bus On Las Ramblas
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Waiting To Board At Santa Margherita Ligure
Crowds have their own choreography. This moment, taken on the waterfront of Santa Margherita Ligure, is less about any single subject and more about the small, unspoken narratives that weave together in a public space. Nobody is looking at the same thing, yet they are all connected by the same purpose — waiting for the boat. From a compositional standpoint, I deliberately let the frame fill with people, favouring density over isolation. The image works because of its layers: the foreground with its sharply focused details, the mid-ground of partially obscured figures, and the soft backdrop of the harbour and town. Each layer adds depth without distracting from the central…
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Bless or Curse?
I took this photograph standing behind the statue, looking out over the marina. The choice of viewpoint was deliberate—front-facing statues are expected, almost ceremonial; from behind, they become more ambiguous. Without the expression to guide us, the outstretched arms could be offering a blessing to the yachts in the bay, or perhaps condemning their excess. The composition is simple but layered. The statue dominates the left third of the frame, creating a strong vertical anchor, while the open space of the sea and sky fills the rest. The boats, scattered across the water, offer points of visual interest without competing for attention. The horizon is placed high enough to balance…
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Passage Lost
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Red Lock At Genova’s Dock Arsenal
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Call On The Docks
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Friends
There is a certain quiet joy in photographs that capture the ease and warmth of companionship. Friends presents just such a moment — a woman and her dog sharing a gentle exchange on a patch of summer grass. No theatrics, no posed glamour; just a fleeting instance of mutual attention and affection. The composition makes effective use of depth and framing. The low camera angle places the viewer almost at the dog’s eye level, encouraging an empathetic connection with the animal. The human subject is positioned slightly off-centre, balancing the frame against the mass of greenery to the left. This not only prevents the image from feeling static but also…
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Staring At The Infinite (While Waiting For The Fishes)
On a calm afternoon by the Ligurian coast, the sea was neither rough nor still, and time seemed to have slowed to match the rhythm of the waves. The fisherman sat among the rocks, his body angled slightly toward the horizon, hands resting loosely near the rods. There was no urgency in his posture—only patience. The red cap, almost absurd in its brightness, became the visual anchor in an otherwise muted palette of stone, water, and sky.
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Boat Maintenance At Genova’s Porto Antico
The Porto Antico in Genoa has a way of blending the romantic with the mundane. Tourists tend to focus on the gleaming yachts, the glint of sunlight on the water, the distant hum of maritime history. I found myself drawn to something less glamorous but far more telling—a simple act of maintenance on a sailboat, captured mid-task. From my vantage point, the composition presented itself naturally. The man in the red shirt bends over the stern, his white hair almost glowing under the midday sun. In the foreground, another man, back turned to us, anchors the scene and adds depth. The large ship’s wheel to the right and the tangle…
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Mooring The Boat
I made this photograph while standing slightly above the scene, looking down as the sailor secured the mooring line. The angle was dictated not by style but by circumstance: the dock rose just enough over the water to offer a natural vantage point. I didn’t ask him to look up or alter his posture. He was intent on the work, and I preferred to remain a quiet observer.
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Just Another Times Square View
I made this photograph in 2000, standing in Times Square with a Canon film camera loaded with Portra 160. It was a different city then—louder in some ways, rougher at the edges, less polished than the LED-saturated spectacle it would later become. What interested me was not the chaos itself, but the uneasy coexistence between permanence and transience: stone and steel on one side, light and commerce on the other. The composition is deliberately vertical, almost architectural. The frame stacks elements upward rather than outward: the dense mass of midtown buildings rises on the left, while the illuminated billboards dominate the right. The Budweiser sign acts as a visual anchor,…
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Mind The Gap!
I made this photograph standing almost flush with the wall, pointing the lens straight up into the thin slice of sky framed by stone and metal. The subject is not the building itself but the uneasy conversation between its decaying ornamentation and the open void above. The fractured balcony edges lean toward each other without touching, creating a tension in the composition that pulls the viewer’s eye toward the bright gap. From a compositional standpoint, the choice of perspective is both a strength and a limitation. The severe upward angle forces strong converging lines, which add a sense of depth and slight unease. However, the proximity of the elements means…
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Arriba El Mexico!
I took this photograph from the passenger seat of a cab, during that suspended moment when traffic stalls and the city becomes a collage of reflections and colour. The small felt figure hanging from the mirror caught my attention first—bright, slightly absurd, and placed without irony. The tiny sombrero, the stitched flag, the green felt body: a souvenir turned mascot, living in the blurred space between décor and identity. What interested me was how this small object commanded the frame. The background—city lights, signage, fragments of buildings—exists only as colour fields and soft shapes. The mirror picks up hints of the driver, the interior, and the street behind us, but…
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A Zeppelin in The New York Sky
New York, 2000. I remember looking up from the crowded streets and seeing it — a zeppelin, drifting slowly above the jagged canyon of Midtown’s architecture. In that moment, it felt like something out of a different century had quietly slipped into ours. I didn’t have much time to think; I just framed, focused, and released the shutter. The composition is as much about absence as it is about presence. The airship is small, almost swallowed by the negative space of the sky, yet the buildings act as monumental bookends, forcing the eye toward the centre. The turquoise cast of the glass facade on the left and the warm brick…
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Now You See It…Street Juggler at a Red Light in Barcelona
Caught this just as the traffic paused. The juggler—or maybe illusionist—stepped onto the zebra crossing like it was a stage, pulling a contact juggling sphere from his pocket with the same ease most reach for a cigarette. No microphone, no music, no hat on the ground. Just confidence, and a tight, silent routine aimed at no one and everyone. I shot from slightly above, which flattened the scene into layers: the motorcyclist on the left, the car breaking the frame in front, and the performer, suspended mid-gesture. The composition benefits from the crosswalk marks, which slice the image horizontally and echo the performer’s stance. It’s geometry meeting theatre. Technically, this…
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The Lost Lock
The photograph is focused on the weathered surface of a wooden door, its grain worn deep by time and use. At the centre sits a latch, secured by a small brass pin, surrounded by the scars of previous fittings. Above it, oversized keyholes mark the door’s history of repairs and replacements, each shadow stretching long across the wood in the midday light. Technically, the image is about texture and shadow. The exposure favours the roughness of the timber, rendering every fissure and nail hole in sharp detail. The sunlight is strong, but instead of washing out the surface, it enhances contrast, pulling the metallic coldness of the lock against the…
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Thirsty
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Ni État Ni Patron
Brussels. A quiet wall, a passing car, and a message that’s louder than both. The slogan is old—older than the paint used to scrawl it—Ni État Ni Patron. No state, no boss. A phrase that echoes from factories, barricades, pamphlets. And now, here it is again, on a half-covered stretch of rendered concrete. It wasn’t written to decorate. It was written to remain. The graffiti stands out not just for what it says, but for where it says it: in the middle of a freshly patched rectangle, painted over what was clearly another message before it. The wall becomes a palimpsest—layers of resistance, erasure, and return. Below it, a car…
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Caged?
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Cupido’s Fall
There was a time when Cupido ruled the world. Not the cherubic archer of myth, but the man on the torn poster — a champion accordionist, his name blazing in dotted capitals, promising music and spectacle. Now, the paper curls at the edges, bleached and scarred by weather, the glory half-erased by time and graffiti. The god of love meets the fate of every earthly name: reduced to a fading print on a damp wall, fighting a losing battle against rust, mould, and the next layer of urban scribble. The photograph works because it understands the poetry of decay. The black-and-white treatment is an apt choice — stripping the scene…
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Siamese Boats On the Seine River
Two barges, TEMPO and VESTA, lashed together as if bound by some unspoken pact, making their way up the Seine. Seen from above, their pairing creates a symmetry that is almost architectural. The way their bows slice the water in unison feels more like choreography than navigation. The shot was taken from a bridge, directly aligned with their approach, which allowed me to keep both vessels centred and parallel in the frame. That alignment is crucial — a slight offset would have made the composition feel off-balance. Here, the geometry holds everything together: two hulls, two decks, two names, and a doubling of anchor motifs. The light was soft but…
