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Marianna D’ama – Live
The stage is barely the size of a rug. The audience—two dozen at most—sits within arm’s reach. There is no spotlight to hide behind, no sound engineer to balance the mix, no roaring crowd to dissolve into. Just a voice, an instrument, and the intimacy of shared air. In this photograph, the singer leans into the microphone with the same intensity one might expect in front of thousands. Her eyes are half-closed, her body wrapped around the rhythm, maracas held like extensions of her heartbeat. The grain of the black and white frame amplifies the sense of proximity—every shadow a whisper, every highlight a breath. House concerts are unforgiving in…
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School of Mathematics@Sapienza University of Rome
I composed this shot knowing it would live or die by its symmetry. The rationality of the architecture demanded nothing less. Sapienza’s School of Mathematics sits like a theorem etched in stone—precise, functional, stripped of excess. Guido Castelnuovo’s name anchors the frame, a reminder that mathematics is not only numbers, but legacy. The format is tight, frontal, and unforgiving. Every vertical and horizontal line had to be clean. A small tilt would’ve betrayed the sense of order. I waited for the man to step into the doorway—not to animate the structure, but to punctuate it. His relaxed stance, paper in hand, slightly breaks the formalism of the façade. A human…
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Skating on the Riviera
This frame came together through rhythm — both in subject and structure. The skater, carving her way through a line of multi-coloured cones, offers a moment of precision and quiet control in the middle of a sunlit promenade. I positioned myself just slightly off-centre to exploit the vanishing line of the cones, letting them anchor the frame from foreground to middle distance. It’s a straightforward visual device, but effective here. They segment the space, and their bright primaries stand in good contrast to the muted pavement. The exposure leans slightly to the high side, but that was deliberate — midday light, especially by the coast, can wash out a frame…
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Nature gets its space back…
I was drawn to the silent battle playing out on this façade. The building, once proud in its classical symmetry, has yielded to time and decay. Nature, opportunistic and patient, is reclaiming space—creeping across brick and stone, entwining itself with Corinthian capitals and shattered sills. This isn’t ruin porn; it’s a quiet negotiation between permanence and ephemerality. I shot straight on, flattening perspective to emphasise the structure’s geometry. Vertical lines matter here—the columns, the window frames, the pattern of the vines—all reinforcing the sense of a former order. Exposure was metered to protect detail in the shadows, especially behind the broken windows, while still holding colour in the overgrown foliage.…
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A (Soon) Lost Banner
This is a photograph of a sign that has clearly outlived its prime. The red background has faded and chipped, the white letters worn thin, yet the word Calzolaio — shoemaker — still points the way. The arrow to the left seems almost stubborn, insisting on a direction in a world where such trades have all but vanished from daily city life. Technically, the image is straightforward, relying on the flatness of the sign against the textured wall. The weathered surface of the plaster contrasts with the bold geometry of the lettering, while the saturated but deteriorated paint creates a visual tension between past vitality and present decay. The exposure…
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(Not so) Intelligent Design
A white hand dryer, sleek and sterile, is mounted firmly on a tiled wall. Below it dangles a single electric cable, ending uselessly in an unplugged RJ connector. There is no socket in sight. No conduit, no power. Just absence. The image is clean, quiet—and absurd. The title, Intelligent Design, delivers a sharp, dry irony. It borrows from the vocabulary of creationist theology to highlight a mundane failure of basic planning. What was meant to be functional is, quite literally, disconnected. In this unassuming scene, the promise of utility is contradicted by execution. The dryer, meant to dry hands, is impotent. The infrastructure, meant to enable function, is missing. Photographically, the…
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An Athlete@Stadio Marmi, Rome
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Weight Training @ Rome’s Stadio Olimpico
I shot this in harsh midday light, the kind most photographers dread. But the mosaic didn’t care. Its story is laid in stone — or more precisely, tesserae — and midday is when shadows become honest. The ancient-modern figure caught mid-lift, exaggerated anatomy and all, stood out like a silhouette against cracked mortar, telling a tale of strength far older than gym culture. The composition was dictated by the subject’s posture — hunched, determined — anchoring the frame and leading the eye to the barbell below. I shot from slightly above, keeping the symmetry broken just enough to feel real. The top of the frame includes fragments of the inscription…
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Caught In The Act… Almost
One of the unspoken truths of street photography is that the act itself is a balancing game between invisibility and intrusion. You work quietly, melting into the scene, but sometimes the veil slips. This frame captures that instant—when the subject’s eyes meet yours and the candid moment becomes a negotiation. I was mid-frame when the man on the right turned, fixing me with a look that could be read as curiosity or suspicion. The keys in his hand, his stance, and the faint tightening of his jaw all freeze into a moment that could unfold in multiple ways. The man in the background remains unaware, his more relaxed posture offering…
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Posing at Milan’s Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II
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Full Moon
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Leaving
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Strategy
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Right before the gig
This frame lives in anticipation. No players yet, but the instruments are already in dialogue — the hollow-body guitar leaning with purpose, the upright amp humming quietly to itself, the pedals strewn like notes before the solo begins. It’s a moment I’ve always found more evocative than the performance itself. The absence becomes expressive. Shot on monochrome, grain unapologetically included, this wasn’t meant to be clean or polished. I exposed to protect the highlights — the reflective lacquer of the grand piano and the shiny knobs on the amp. Shadows fall naturally, but I let them creep in unevenly, especially on the left, where the plastic chair feels like an…
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Italian Track&Field Championship 2018 – The reportage
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Close up of an Ethnic Chessboard
Photographing chess pieces is a common cliché, yet this set refused to be generic. Sculpted with raw, almost brutalist character, these figures aren’t crafted for elegance—they’re carved for presence. The asymmetries, the subtle flaws in the stone, and the ambiguous expressions on the pieces imbue the scene with tension. One might call them grotesque, but I prefer “unapologetically tactile.” I chose a narrow depth of field, letting only a sliver of the board fall into focus. It wasn’t just an aesthetic decision. With these pieces, clarity carries weight; it turns the observer into a participant. The fallen pieces strewn at the bottom edge complete the silent narrative of strategy and…
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Learning to Fly
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A Ryanair Aircraft
Aircraft photography is one of those genres that forces you to think fast but shoot with precision. This Ryanair Boeing 737-800 was already well into its climb when I caught it, banking slightly, the underbelly catching just enough light to reveal detail without losing shadow depth. The light was midday and harsh, but the blue sky was deep enough to give the white fuselage some tonal separation. From a compositional standpoint, I went for a clean, minimalist frame—just aircraft and sky. The slight diagonal tilt of the plane across the frame adds a sense of motion and energy, while keeping it isolated against the background gives the image clarity and…
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The Pulse of Passion: A Story Told in Red
The front of the Alfa Romeo 4C is not just a car’s face—it is a declaration. In this image, the camera leans close, as if listening to the car breathe. The deep metallic red curves catch the light like liquid, while the famous triangular grille bears the badge of a century of Italian automotive romance. The car feels alive, even at rest. Its eyes—clusters of round lamps, more creature than machine—seem to watch the street with intent. The reflections of trees and buildings ripple across the bonnet, turning the polished paint into a living canvas of its surroundings. It is a reminder that driving is as much about the world…
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The Bell Ringer of Nikko
I waited some time before releasing the shutter on this one—not for the perfect moment, but for the right weight of silence before the sound. The act of ringing the temple bell isn’t just functional; it’s ritualistic, a gesture loaded with centuries of repetition. The photo had to feel like that: a still image of an act in motion, reverberating beyond its frame. I composed the shot dead centre to honour the symmetry of the structure. Japanese temple architecture lends itself to this kind of alignment—balanced, precise, and timeless. The bell, massive and inert, dominates the top third of the frame, while the man below draws the eye through motion,…
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A Sad Cat in a Neko Cafè
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StreetPizza@Ueno Park
I took this photograph during a humid summer afternoon in Ueno Park, Tokyo, a few metres away from the art museums and temples that draw both locals and tourists. Amid the buzz of the park’s cultural gravity, I was drawn instead to this fleeting vignette of street food preparation—quiet, unassuming, yet visually dense. What first caught my eye was the can of tomato pulp, “A Pummarola ‘Ncopp,” planted squarely in the middle of the frame like an improvised totem. Its bold Neapolitan red, combined with the colloquial script and graphic of tomatoes, adds a deliberate contrast to the surrounding functional, almost makeshift textures. Everything else in the composition plays a…
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Shrinking Knowledge Into A Small Brain
The composition presented itself almost too perfectly: two heavy book presses clamped around vintage volumes, framed by old clocks, writing tools, and artefacts of once-essential objects. It was in a display window of Itoya Ginza—a stationery temple in Tokyo—and the irony wasn’t subtle. Books literally compressed, as time ticks above them. Nothing staged, everything intentional. I shot this straight on to preserve the museum-like symmetry. The verticals are deliberate: spines, handles, clock faces, and the clean architectural grid outside. The lighting inside was soft but layered—enough to pull texture out of the pressed leather bindings and chrome bolts. ISO pushed slightly to handle shadows beneath the glass shelf, but noise…
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Moistmaker@Piazza della Rotonda
I took this photograph at a crowded café terrace in the height of summer, when heat presses down on both locals and tourists. The focus is not on the crowd itself but on the industrial fan in the foreground, misting the air with a fine spray. Its utilitarian presence dominates the frame, turning into an unlikely protagonist against the backdrop of awnings, chatter, and bodies seeking shade. Compositionally, I placed the fan off-centre but close enough that its metallic grid commands attention. The yellow canopies lead the eye deeper into the scene, pulling focus towards the throng of people blurred in the background. That separation between sharp foreground and hazy…
