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A manual-focus atteimpt on a moving target
Still needs practicing
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EOS-M. An Act of Fairness
I’ve been anything but gentle in my assessment of the Canon EOS-M’s street photography credentials. In the chaos of fast-moving urban life, it has always felt a step behind — hesitant where others are decisive. But fairness demands balance, and in the stillness of landscape work, this little mirrorless manages to surprise. This frame, taken with the humble 18-55mm stabilised kit lens, shows the EOS-M in its element. The river’s current twists and glides across the frame, textures shifting from silky blur to glassy detail, the greens of moss and the reddish undertones of the rocks holding their place against the moving water. The stabilisation works in quiet partnership with…
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Never Trust the Autofocus (not only) in Street-Photography
The more I practice the street-photography, the more I find myself more at ease with zone-focusing instead of trusting the camera auto-focus. This is, in my case, particularly true with hip-shooting where I can only “guess” what the camera is actually focusing. Though not a candid, this photo explains what I mean: the idea was to have the flowers and the small lamp in focus, but the actualization has been the exact opposite. My fault, of course, because I would have given a look at the viewfinder, but the point is that I didn’t feel like I had to since the AF will cares. Another skill I need, Kime apart,…
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The EOS-M just sucks
I made a point of staying clear of gearhead-oriented posts like: “x100s is better than M9” to focus on images and shooting only. In fact this blog only hosts two or three entries that talk about gear while the rest is dedicated to the exposure I catch. I want to break the rule again to provide an absolute subjective while definitive opinion of the Canon EOS-M: in one word (well, two, actually) it sucks. Thank to the ingenuity of Adriano Lolli, a pure genius, I have been able to couple my EOS-M with a Zeiss Sonnar 50 1/5, in the (lost) hope that by doing so I would have obtained…
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Who wants to live forever?
I found this sign in a narrow alley in southern Italy, somewhere between a forgotten tabaccheria and a shuttered photo lab. The kind of place where time no longer hurries. “Kodak films in vendita qui” it proclaims—still, stubbornly, as if refusing to accept the world has moved on. The once-bold red letters are now softened by decades of sun, rain, and indifference. The plastic casings holding each letter—cracked, leaning, imperfect—speak more truth than any marketing slogan ever could. It’s a ghost sign, still selling hope in an age when its promise has nearly vanished. This isn’t just a relic of analogue photography—it’s a whisper of what we thought would last…
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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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The Photo I Didn’t Shoot
Every amateur photographer (and maybe a few professionals) has a shot he chose not to fire. In my case it is a brutal knock-out on a Mixed Martial Arts match. As official photographer of the event I was allowed to wander around the venue with no restriction (but jumping on the ring). During the second round I sensed that something was going to happen: the fighters started trading heavy punches at close distance and the temperature of the match raised suddenly hot. The crowd went mad, inciting the two men to hit harder and harder. All of a sudden, a hook at the jaw shut down the light of one…
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Too Noisy
A Marching Brass Band rehearsing its performance… maybe too noisy even for daylight time?
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Photography and the dangers of ethics
Starting from my usual visit at Yanick Delacroix website, yanidel.net, and Eric Kim blog link after link, I’ve stumbled upon a post by Joerg Colberg discussing the always-hot topic of ethics vs law in (street-)photography. The usual way to handle this problem is by expressing it in terms of “freedom-of-expression-vs-personal-privacy” and by raising questions like “would you have shot this picture?”, “how do you feel photographing homelesses, bums and freaks?”, “Is this photo ethical?” and invariably concluding without giving a clear (though non necessary correct) answer. So, for what it worth, here are my two pence. To put it short, the Colberg (proposed) Doctrine says (verbatim quotation) it might be…
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Foto-Grafo admitted to the Persol Reflex Edition contest
This photo has been accepted for the Persol Reflex Edition contest. I usually don’t like to participate in this kind of initiatives, but the appeal of the possibility to win a Leica M-E was too compelling!
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Thirthy years behind…
I took these two shots unbeknownst of the work of Luigi Ghirri and Mimmo Jodice. These photo cannot be at all compared with those from the two masters, nevertheless what amazed me is the similarity of the compositions between what I did and those of Ghirri and Jodice. It seems that I’m into a path already explored since some thirty years or so. Now the challenge is how long will it takes to evolve into a contemporary (and, possibly, original) style.
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When the day is gone
… there are plenty of ways to still make a newspaper useful.
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Forgotten Bike In A Forgotten House
I found the bike in a room whose doors had not been opened in years. Paint flaked from the plaster. Light slipped through a broken pane and laid a clean rectangle across the floor. The bike stood where someone once left it mid-errand, an everyday object promoted by neglect into relic. I built the frame around planes and diagonals. The window sits high and left to keep the eye moving across the shaft of light to the handlebars, then down the front wheel to the scuffed tiles. Floorboards and wall seams act as guides, converging behind the saddle to hold the gaze. I kept a little headroom above the bars…
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Don’t Forget!
It’s the moment between words that makes this picture. You can almost hear the shop owner’s voice, half command, half reminder, as the young man in the doorway glances back. The raised hand, the turned head, the slight lean forward — everything about his body language says, “You’ve got this, but don’t mess it up.” The frame itself is tight, almost conspiratorial. We’re standing just behind another figure — smart jacket, cigarette in hand — as if we’ve stumbled into a private exchange. That foreground figure acts as an anchor and a barrier at the same time: we’re part of the scene, yet removed from it, observing through a filter…
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Dreaming of a Lancia Delta Martini…
… while driving a Nissan.
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The Power of Music
The story is all in the child’s eyes
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Supporter or Photographer?
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Foto-Grafo featured on Yanidel.net
The (temporarily now) Argentina-based street-photographer Yanick Delaforge kindly published a couple of shots from Foto-Grafo, Quis Custodies and The Last Waltz, in his “Sho(r)t Stories” series.
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Seeking Directions
is a complex task, not only on the streets.
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A kiss in the shade
while the love is for real
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The Bored Bassman
Jazz stages have a way of amplifying not just the music, but the moods of those who inhabit them. This frame, taken mid-performance, says less about the notes being played and more about the space between them. The singer is in her moment, eyes closed, wrapped in the phrasing of a lyric. The bassist, by contrast, rests his chin on his hand — a gesture that could be concentration, fatigue, or simply waiting for his cue. From a compositional point of view, it’s an image split in tone and focus. The spotlighting was harsh, and while it gave the singer’s red dress and skin a luminous presence, it also pushed…
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An inconvenient way to spend time.
Waking up at dawn, layering up like a World Cup slalom contender, waiting your turn at the ski-lift, gliding up to 1,800 metres… and then, instead of carving lines on powder, seeking out the perfect sunny corner to unfold a deckchair and read a magazine. De gustibus, indeed. I took this photograph partly amused, partly curious. The two figures, bundled in ski gear, are frozen in a still life of leisure that feels completely at odds with their surroundings. It’s an unspoken reminder that the mountains aren’t only for the adrenaline-seekers — they’re also for those who see them as a backdrop for a slower kind of pleasure. Technically, the…
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Overexposed?
The scene was candid — two figures, winter jackets zipped to the chin, one holding a small camera at arm’s length, the other patiently posing. The patchwork of snow and rocky ground under a hard midday sun gave me a chance to play with tonal contrast, though it came with its own technical hazards. Snow in bright light loves to trick meters, and the risk here was losing detail in both the highlights and the shadowed areas of the coats. I exposed with the snow in mind, letting the darker parts fall slightly under, trusting that I could lift them later without ruining texture. The clouds, stretched across the frame…
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Rest in peace
after half a day of ski.
