Christmas is almost here! It was a challenging year, tiring from every point of view but full of intense emotions. With the holidays quickly approaching,  I want to wish everyone who is reading my blog a safe and enjoyable time with family and friends! Hoping, as usual, that the upcoming year will be much much better! See ya in 2014! ...

This beautiful long-eared owls (Asio otus) were spying on me while I was sitting on the balcony. From dusk til dawn they stay there, perfectly camouflaged among high branches of the garden tree. They sit all day almost motionless and impassively and then, in the evening, begin their work and take flight in search of some food.  It's a large family of seven-eight owls who are spending the winter on this tree, away...

The Galilean thermometer on my attic desk We are always surrounded by objects. In almost all cases are things that we have seen hundreds of times, and details that we know very well that belong to our ordinary world. But how would apporoach these objects a person who did not know what they are and begin to study them, looking at them from every possible angle to understand their form and function? For sure he would find...

"And all the lives we ever lived,  and all the lives to be,  are full of trees and changing  leaves".                                Virginia Woolf...

Last weekend I had some time to dedicate to photography, stolen from the rhythm of the working and family week. The weather was not so good but the desire to see the first snow of the season close to home prevailed.  Just as I was about to start my return back home, the horizon cleared up, a thick blanket of clouds began to take shape, and one of the few last rays of sunshine of the day powerfully illuminated...

Dogs often tend to have a whole lotta shakin' goin' on.  Ever wondered what all that shaking mean?  Dogs shake themselves after a bath, when they wake up and even after you hug them or comb them. Several studies have been performed about dog shaking and some fascinating facts have been revealed.   Dogs shaking is very effective, they can shake themselves 70% dry in just a fraction of a second, they...

Someone once said that "a beautiful sky with no clouds can be the worst enemy for your photos". As the days slowly become shorter and shorter and temperatures drop, here comes a season in which it seems more difficult to take some photos. For many of us, this is the time where the camera is idle for a long time and it can happen to opt to sit at the computer instead of going out to shoot, maybe because the weather...

Do you know that low light that comes just before sunset, the warm one that produces beautiful long shadows and that define everything so magically? It's the light that give us the "golden hours", those moments just after sunrise or just before sunset when the sun is low on the horizon. During this time of year, so close to the winter solstice, these phases are getting longer and unlike summer when you only have a few minutes...

Wandering around small shops - Roussillon village ocre Provence is known for beautiful landscapes of cypress and olive trees amid verdant fields, with medieval towns perched on hills linked by quiet back roads.  Lavender scents the air and fruits, vegetables and olive oil are so fresh that you're convinced they should be picked or produced in that very single day. Splendid churches, medieval castles, abbeys and...

Reindeer on the beach, Norway - North Cape 2000 Expedition - Scan from film It's amazing the huge amount of images stored on hard disks of our computers. In digital era lots of stuff, also bad stuff, is preserved and maybe in the end is not even cancelled. It takes up terabytes upon terabytes but starting now I want to give me as a rule to go back and take a look at old snaps, rework them and consider them with new...

Autumn is a gorgeous time of the year. Nature gives us a spectacular show of colours, with its rich palette of browns, splashes of reds, hints of yellow and shades of green to enjoy before winter.  The air is filled with the musky scent of burning wood, the days get shorter and colder but some of my favourite colours appear during this season.  This is the time of the year where a photograph of a simple...

As a photographer I can consider myself a sort of an artist, an observer and a lover of negative space. The negative space is the area around the subject and, for me, it is just as important as the subject itself. Some times negative space is useful if you want to create a mood or a secondary point of interest. Some times enhances or competes with the subject. Other times is an element that can reveal a sort of quiet...

They have made ​​the history of road trips and, many years later, they are still very much in vogue: beautiful, elegant, remind us memories and famous movies, they are the most popular classic cars, from simple to super sports cars.There are few, if any, pieces of hardware as emotive as the car: for the collector, every single vintage car is not only a car formed by electrical, mechanical and body components, but also a living...

You see a picture, look into it, look for the main subject, you search for a story.  Often it is the story told by the main subject that attracts at first sight the observer, it is almost due to our nature.  But there are a lot of stories that permeate an image, there is for example the history of the place, the private history of the people in the shot, but the most important is the photographer one, how he made...

It's not so usual wandering in the streets of your hometown and find yourself face to face with an open-air museum made of dark huge sculptures with a church or an old building as a background. Thats what happened to me some days ago, a pleasant and strange feeling walking in very well known places with this big presences from Fernando Botero, the figurative artist, famous for his sculptures with exaggerated and...

Tech data: Canon EOS 5D, Canon EF 70-200 mm f/4 L Model: Indy The first time I saw a picture by David Hamilton I was impressed by the magic of lights and colors that manages to combine them in a truly unique experience and I was even more incredulous to discover that he did not use filters or a sort of manipulation as well. If you are interested in photography, you might have already heard the term “the Hamilton look”.  David...

Moisture is still in the air due to the overnight thunderstorm. The water has soaked the grass of an intense green color. The mountain appears and disappears through the veils of a cool mist.For a thousand years the bell tower reassure the landscape with its sound; between sun and rain, it offers the guarantee of a safe refuge."The safe harbour" is the new photo of the month on my website. Enjo...

When you speak about photography in general, you select the elements that capture your attention and fix them in a canvas which is actually the photo itself. Texture photography forces us to look at the world in a different way, can sometimes be challenging, since composition, light and depth work differently than in, for example, landscape photography.  It's all about repeated forms, patterns, colors, and...

My...slurpilicious Smoked Ribs Kansas City Style The city of Kansas City is where barbecue ribs got their start. The key of this style most comes down to the sauce. It's thick, sweet and the ribs are large, with the longer portion of the rib bone, minus the fatty tips. After a very slow smoking-cooking process, the become sweet, sticky with a nice spice and great smoky flavour. The secret, however, is in the dry rub, giving...

"Photography changes the way you see things". This is a phrase that many great photographers have more or less expressed and it's a truth that every photo enthusiast knows very well. What happens is that, at some point, the common experiences appear in a different light, you start to notice colors, shadows, details, people expressions, all kind of things that went unnoticed before. Our world takes on a different visual...

Braies Lake - South Tyrol, Italy I'm back from my summer holidays and a 2 week break from work, including all my internet stuff.  Apart from a few Instagram updates, I haven't been checking the web, mainly due to the weak internet in my apartment, but I will admit, it was nice getting a break from it all!  The weather was amazingly cool and, even with a little baby, we were able to do some hiking as...

It's this time of the year once again, when we leave everything behind and try to relax a little bit from everyday working life. This year I chose the freshness and the pure air of South Tyrol mountains. I hope to relax, have fun and make lots of shots, enjoying the company of my family, my newborn baby and my dog! So take care of yourselves and have fun whatever you are planning to do! See you at the beginning of August!...

Sometimes I find myself stopping and framing a small open slot in the wall, not taking care of the puzzled looks of the people around me. I like thinking about cracks as something alive, that win against the hard material. Perhaps it is exactly this idea that drives me to deal with this kind of pictures and maybe to develop also some photo projects on them. I like cracks! :-) ...

"Don't play the saxophone. Let it play you"  - Charlie Parker Summer is heating up, so what could be better to spend an evening, with a gentle breeze, a cold drink and good tuneful jazz music? What I really like in this kind of music is the use of saxophone... I love this musical instrument! There is something highly appealing about the sound of a saxophone and the mystery of a saxophonist. I think that saxophones...

Golden wheat planted amongst lowly grasses Must learn to withstand life's stormy weather. (c) Christine Kysely...

Light illuminates, shadows define. The light illuminates, but is the shadow that defines objects and gives them body.   Taking advantage of the contrasts and catch them with the camera is an exercise that requires a little attention, the difference in brightness is a challenge for sensors and films, forcing the photographer to decide what to sacrifice.   Keep the details in the dark areas, or mantain rich...

Last weekend I had the opportunity to see live, after ten years, the National Aerobatic Team "Frecce Tricolori" (PAN) and numerous performances of military and historic aircrafts, directly above the sky of my hometown. In this exciting sunday, the dark and threatening sky has become so far an enormous canvas for pilots and their amazing maneuvers.  The National Aerobatic Team, with ten aircraft, including nine...

After the advent of digital, despite the enormous possibilities offered by the online sharing, too many shots remain unexpressed and stay into the hard disk as a sort of a limbo. Digital photos often have a problem that is common to many photographers: they never go outside, turning into something tangible and accessible for all and tend to accumulate without being seen by anyone besides the photographer himself. However...

"The Hammering Man" - Frankfurt, Germany On the pavement leading to the Frankfurt fairgrounds stands "The Hammering Man", a large kinetic sculpture created by Jonathan Borofsky. The black sculpture, erected here in 1991, seems to be hammering at constant pace and symbolizes the working man. Jonathan Borofsky (1942) is an american sculptor and most of his famous works, at least among the general public, are his Hammering...

There is one thing that often threatens our ability to take good shots.   It's our life always on-the-go, that narrows the moments that we devote to our passions, which only during few occasions allows us to stop and look, seize and take advantage of the many photo opportunities that are presented to us. But realizing this you can learn to slow down.  Every time I go out with the camera I'll always try to take...

Tech data: iPhone 4s, 6x6 App, processed with Snapseed Location: Frankfurt - Germany Architecture photography is becoming more and more popular in my daily work. Mainly I really like photographing modern architecture because I can get away with using a more modern and abstract style. Moreover, as a huge fan of wide-angle lenses, it's quite easy to produce extreme perspective or unusual angles. A telephoto lens is always...

I put down my magazine to observe the details of the things around me. It's a relatively small waiting area. Waiting passengers like myself are scattered all around, mostly absorbed in their thoughts, books or just watching their iPads. There is something about airport and waiting: everyone seems to be thankful for this moment for themselves, like a time to calm down. In this place of transit they decide to not think about...

Edgar Allan Poe, an American author whose cloudy personal life is a virtual legend, considered himself primarily a poet. He was best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, such as The Black Cat (1843) in which a man’s maniacal hatred for a black cat consumes him and leads him to murder. The Black Cat is one of Poe’s best-known short stories and looking at my shot I can feel the mood of this story...hope you...

In Provence, exactly in the Camargue region, there is a small village suspended between sky and the sea called Saintes-Maries de la Mer.  Here amidst beaches, white horses who still live in the wild, pink flamingos and a rich artistic and cultural heritage, the journey becomes a fascinating adventure.  But here, is Nature that shows all over its wild and fascinating face in the dunes and beaches that surround...

You may feel so small on many occasions: when you talk to a person who shows confidence and experience, when you feel powerless against the events and life, or even when you discover something so beautiful that you could not grab the overall meaning. I feel so small at the foot of mountains, from the bottom when I see that formidable mass of stone, earth, water and vegetation, and I think of those living hosts. ...

You came in on a rainy day, and, like rain, get deeply into my heart. (April 5th, 201...

Despite the calendar insisting it’s spring, sunshine, warmth and the cherry blossoms have not yet arrived... but do not worry, also for this year we will be wearing flip-flops, bbq-ing and playing outdoor. Meanwhile, between one heavy rain and another, I am lucky to find in my garden some spring signs which hardly trying to make their way in search of the sun in one of the wettest March ever... I think everyone...

Guatelli's Museum is located near Parma, in the village where I was born and raised as a young guy. Ettore Guatelli, a local elementary school teacher, collected all the objects of the day-to-day life with the aim to preserve in our memories all things we tend not to use anymore. Among the many definitions used to describe his collection, Guatelli often resorted to the "museum of the obvious things" or "museum of everyday...

Whether it be portraiture, fashion, commercial, abstract or still-life, great photography is a fascinating art form. Horst P. Horst was one of the great masters of fashion photography.   Its refined images of female silhouettes on a light background in pure black and white are its distinctive "trademark". "I like taking photographs, because I like life. And I love photographing people best of all, because most...

Aligned on a shelf and disposed to form a procession with brightly colored backs, they capture my attention every time nostalgia come back to my mind. Can be spartan or with beautiful photos in a sort of National Geographic style: they are the guides that accompanied me during past years to discover all the countries I have been lucky to visit so far. Sometimes it happens that I pick one of them and find myself absorbed...

Tech data: Canon EOS 5D, Canon EF 17-40 mm f/4, f/11, 5s, ISO 100 - Tripod It's been almost 30 years since I started to take my very beginning shots. At first it was only during special events or travels with my parents and, once back home, I could not wait to catalog and be able to show all the slides of the places where I had been on vacation.My preferred subjects, like all amateur photographers, were landscapes and every...

Landmannalaugar, the valley - Iceland 1999 The Landmannalaugar area is one of the most amazing places and a popular tourist attractions in the southern highlands of Iceland. The whole area consists of many geological elements and the very colourful rhyolite mountains and vast lava field surrounding it make this region quite unique. The volcanic ash and debris covered in beautiful grass, and the moss that covers the...