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An interesting reading
To seat or no to seat?
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The three musket(b)eer
Guess who’s Porthos?
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The Icecream is ready to be served
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Tables and Chairs, at Night
I was drawn to the repetition in this scene — a narrow path lined with tables and chairs, each set lit by a pool of light from the wall-mounted lamps. The rain had just stopped, and the wet stone reflected the glow, creating a subtle tonal contrast that runs like a silver ribbon through the composition. I chose to frame it at an angle that emphasises the recession into darkness, the line of tables pulling the viewer’s eye deeper into the image. The rhythm is regular but not mechanical; the slight variations in chair placement and the occasional break in symmetry prevent it from feeling sterile. The lamps provide natural…
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Fantozzi’s chairs
They look innocent enough — two soft, shapeless seats next to a rattan table, tucked under a wall in some coastal bar. But the title gives it away: Fracchia’s Chairs. And if you know the name, you know exactly what kind of scene this is. Giandomenico Fracchia, as played by Paolo Villaggio in the 1970s, was the tragicomic soul of bureaucratic Italy: servile, stammering, utterly at the mercy of authority. There’s a legendary sketch in which he’s being questioned by his boss — unable to sit still on a chair so round and formless it’s practically a trap. And here it is again, reimagined in polyurethane and branded with Nastro Azzurro. The…
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Still Together
Still together, like the very first day. I saw them before they saw me — leaning slightly towards each other, their posture neither rigid nor slouched, but comfortably suspended in the shared gravity of the table between them. The wine glasses, half-filled with rosé, spoke of time already spent; the unopened bottle on the side suggested more still to come. From a compositional standpoint, I worked with the geometry of the setting — the square table, the vertical lines of the wall, and the quiet interruption of the stone column — to anchor the frame. The couple sit on opposite sides, yet the line of sight between them is unbroken,…
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The missing guest
This image unfolded quietly, almost too politely — three men in jackets and ties sitting at a table clearly set for four. The elegance of the setup, from the pressed tablecloth to the carefully arranged centrepiece, clashes subtly with the anticipation suspended in their posture. Nobody makes eye contact. One reads the menu, the others look downward, pretending focus. The empty chair becomes the central subject without needing to move. Framing was tight on purpose. I let the olive oil bottle in the foreground stand, blurring into obscurity and giving some depth and texture to an otherwise sharply focused core. That slight intrusion also reinforces the perspective: I wasn’t part…
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Late-afternoon’s snack
…who knows what will be served for dinner?
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An Old-Style ATM
This frame came together in the blink of an eye — or perhaps more accurately, in the blur of one. No carefully plotted composition, no tripod, no second chance. Just a brief exchange at a café counter: a plate extended, a hand offering payment, the warmth of human transaction before contactless cards made it all vanish into invisible transfers. The motion blur here is both the flaw and the essence. Technically speaking, the shutter speed was far too slow for handheld shooting in this kind of lighting, resulting in softness across the entire image. If sharpness were the sole measure of photographic merit, this would be an immediate reject. But…
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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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Bored
… why go to dinner together, just to enjoy a boring night?
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The Last Puff, Before the Kitchen Opens
He leans into the corrugated shutter like it’s the only stable thing in his world. Dressed in pristine whites, but already marked by the day’s fatigue, this cook steals a few quiet moments with his cigarette and his phone. The street is empty, the restaurants still closed, and everything about the frame holds a soft tension—the pause before the fire and oil, the clang of metal, and the heat of service. What struck me first was the geometry. The vertical roll-up doors, the receding line of storefronts, the bricks underfoot—all form a corridor that isolates him visually and narratively. I composed slightly off-centre to echo the disconnection between his world…
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No time for lunch at Piazza Fiume …
It was the shadow that pulled me in first—mine, cast sharply onto the boot of the car, creeping into the scene like an unwanted narrator. Midday sun can be harsh, unforgiving, but here it helped slice the moment cleanly into layers: man, car, street, façade. Rome, in its winter light, does this beautifully—sculpts with sun rather than bathing in it. The man was absorbed, cigarette in one hand, eyes squinting into the curbside distance. His posture wasn’t idle. It was tight, waiting. The shoulder bag pulled across his frame like a restraint. The frame itself is compressed—everything close, tight to the lens, from the Mercedes emblem to the man’s jacket…
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Lunchtime
It’s cold. But for a while, better stay outside.
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Alive Or Not?
It’s a fraction of a gesture—half a figure, half a scene, the rest left to suggestion. The photograph wasn’t staged; I caught it walking past a mirrored office entrance. A man stood statue-still in the morning light, the crisp shirt collar slightly rumpled, his cardigan misaligned, tie pulled just a bit too tight. And in his hand, a cigarette—not lit, not smoked, merely held. Suspended. That detail alone tilted the entire scene into ambiguity. Technically, the image relies heavily on contrast—natural, unforgiving light from the left collides with deep shadows on the right. The tonal division reinforces the emotional ambivalence. It’s clean, yes, but harsh. The edges of the shirt…
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Multitasking
This frame is one of those candid catches where the absurd quietly sits inside the ordinary. Two men, mid-meal, are absorbed in their respective worlds: the one in the centre toggling between a phone call and a glass of wine, the other leaning forward in conversation. The table is cluttered with the civilised chaos of lunch — sparkling water, empty glasses awaiting purpose, a scattering of breadsticks. The composition is built almost like a play: the seated figures as protagonists, the window behind them acting as both set and light source. That window, however, is a double-edged sword. The strong backlight pushed the dynamic range to its limit, forcing me…
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Busy (again)
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A perfect match
You don’t pose the street. You chase it — and sometimes, if your reflexes are fast enough, you catch it. In this image, it happened in a split second. A man sat reading the newspaper at a café table. For the briefest of moments, he held it in such a way that his own profile aligned perfectly with the image printed on the page — a fashion ad, a male model in a similar pose, eyes half in shadow, fingers near the mouth. Two men, one real, one imagined, locked in a mirrored gesture of casual confidence. Then it was gone. That’s the essence of street photography: the unrepeatable alignment…
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PizzaPizza
I want a pizza!
