Winter announced

Winter is definitely here. I woke up this morning and, opening the blinds of my bedroom, I saw the first snow flocks of the year coming down. A real joy for kids. Not much for me. 

In this time of the year I wake up when it's still night, enter my office at dawn, I spend most of my days closed into a lab or into a meeting room, without noticing any difference in light as time passes and then I get out of there when it's night again and the fog has fallen upon almost everything. Milan, London or Stockholm, it doesn't make any difference. Let's get ready for this month of consumism.

Autumn explorations

After several B&W images it's time to put some colors on this blog again. Don't expect an extraordinarily colorful palette: hunting and proposing aggressive color combinations are not in my top priority list since long. There must be always some kind of balance in each proposal and long term coherence, from day to day, one post after the other, as if I was weaving a long tale on my loom.

Last time I put some samples from a french marketplace, now I'm showing the colors of the Autumn. Looks like incidental, riding bikes with my son we came out of a wood and crossed a small village where magically all building appeared as if they had just wore an autumnal frock, in tune with the foliage of the nearby grove.

In this small series everything, even my son's jersey, looks so much monochromatic, in some extent so much ... B&W. That's why, just like the french onions and powders, I opted to put it on display.

The front yard

I've spotted this building not far from where I'm living during one of my last Sunday's rides on my bike. It looks like being abandoned since eons but it's actually populated by someone. The small, ancient, garden on the front is clearly maintained, even if has already put on its winter frock. The door light is on night and day but the blinds are always shut. I've heard someone in the nearby village calling it the "institute". I'll investigate a little more in the coming days. 

The toy is broken

591 has definitely quit (fermeé). The fire's off but the embers are still burning below. The phoenix has come back to life again from her ashes. I'll come back on this topic in the following days.

The underlying form

"We are at the classic-romantic barrier now, where on one side we see a cycle as it appears immediately - and this is an important way of seeing it - and where on the other side we can begin to see it as a mechanic does in terms of underlying form - and this is an important way of seeing things too. These tools for example - this wrench - has a certain romantic beauty to it, but its purpose is always purely classical. It's designed to change the underlying form of the machine."

Robert Pirsig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

On top of the World

I must confess I'm one of those who doesn't necessarily feel disturbed while spotting one of these cabinets on top of a mountain. It's my job. I'm among those people who spend ten hours a day - most of which sitting and talking in endless meetings - trying to make these telecom equipment work as the "customer wants".

One could argue what a smart-phone is necessary for on top of a hill. He's got a point. But there are many others who are in the need of a permanent connection, where ever they are, 7x24. For them (and few others public interest services) these boxes and antennas are for and, yes, there are times I feel proud to spot them and tell my kids what they're for and that I'm one of those guys who made what's inside.

We go alone

I was talking with some colleagues of mine, today, during a coffee break at our premises, when one of them started complaining that he hadn't slept much the night before. One of his sons had been out with his friends for a cinema & pizza or something else he didn't want (or couldn't) know. He stood up, watching TV on the sofa in his living room, until his son was back home.

Some of us laughed at him; others sympathized, having had more or less the same experience; I tried instead to suggest him to be less catastrophic and more fatalist. At my words he turned to me and ironically smiling said: "Your kids are still young. Wait and see ... There will be a time when you'll drive them to party. There will be another when they'll take the car to drive you around ...".

Oh my!

Flora Alpina - VI

Flora Alpina - V

Pastorale

Echoes

We're having the most typical rainy November, this year, despite the news and predictions of an imminent, looming, dooming, disastrous climate change. Additionally, for some reasons, my workoad has just grown, along with responsibilities (noblesse oblige). For such, I  can't find anymore the time enough to walk around and "observe" the world. I have to go back looking into my hard disk and work out some samples of the recent past. But this is not a real problem: Summer holidays are our think tank, the time budget we have at our disposal to keep ourselves trained.

The pictures coming in the next days, once again, are echoes of my last Summer on the Alps.

Three samples

So, we have ...

... an old car, a duck, a stack of chopped trees, some chairs, pots of flowers everywhere, a wheelbarrow, a palm tree, a wooden ladder and debris all around. Good enough to start writing a story.

Not shown a pair of cowboy boots with spurs.

End of transmissions?

591 is going to take its place in the Hall of Fame of photography blog. We'll find out the best way to celebrate this unbelievable experience. But it's not all finished, nothing lost. The 591 star ship crew is bent on the maps again, looking for a new destination and getting ready for a new experience, a new journey. I shall contribute to the new enterprise as well.

Five Years Gone

It's been a long ride. A journey that started in a cold and rainy November evening in Stockholm, five years ago. It was one of those nights that you even strive to find the will to step out of your hotel room for dinner. I still recall the icy droplets tipping on the panes of my windows and myself in a white shower coat, sitting at the desk and waiting for the opening post of 591 to appear.

That's, photographically speaking, my greatest regret. I could have sat together with the founder of this enterprise while the its brainchild was gearing up and moving its first steps. I waited instead in a cozy and warm hotel room, few hundreds meters far from him, just because I was shy, lazy and felt inappropriate.

It's been a long ride and I nourished myself the conviction it would have lasted for much more. As life teaches every day, unfortunately, things are made to be born and die. Death, unlike birth, arrives inadvertently or after many unseen or misunderstood signs. And when it happens remorse takes possession of your mind. You look back at the time gone a regret for what you haven't been able to do, for what you've always postponed.

This evening was meant to be a moment of celebration. I prepared myself to that. Alas, as anticipated some weeks ago, Ulf decided it was time to roll the shutter down and close this experience. We were noticed about this just yesterday, soon after the last exhibition was out.

Needless to say I feel sad. 

591 - One World

"When 591 Photography started in November 2008, I was determined to make it an international site. The world is one and to view pictures from all over the world and get to know photographers from every corner of the planet will hopefully contribute to resist all kinds of xenophobia." (Ulf Fagelhammar)

The latest effort made by Ulf for 591 is concentrated in the 180 photographs selected for the exhibition "One World", on display from today at the following link: One World.

Ischia (SouthEast Coast)

I was at the coffee corner at my job, some days ago when I was approached by one of the senior system engineers of my department. He came close to the vending machine where I was leaning on with my shoulders while turning round a little stick into my coffe and, pointing his finger at me, told me: "You are from an island that's been the first Greek settlement in Italy, my town was founded by your ancestors, therefore I am somehow a relative of yours". He was not drunk and I don't have reasons to think he's assuming drugs. I stared at him after this revelation and, continuing circling an already cold coffee, answered: "I think so ...".

As I'll have to wait until next Summer before knowing if I'll be able to get back there, I turned my attention to my hard-disk and pulled these pictures of a boat tour around the island that I had last July. You'll see only rocks formations, what's left from latest eruptions. It's some kind of celebration of the power of nature. A sign of respect for the vulcan sleeping few hundreds meters under the island surface.

The electrowood

A no-fly zone, some kilometers far from where I live. A place where cycling and walking are at your own risk. The electromagnetic field of the zone is so high that I can feel the induction currents passing through my body, when I short circuit the handlebar of my MTB with both arms. A scary place where some humans still keep on living and working in the fields as nothing has happened.

A la decouverte ...

Warning: all pictures below are taken with my not-smart-at-all-mobile cam. Watching at them can seriously affect your opinion about me.

The cold season, according to those working at the forecast offices, will soon knock at our doors. Last Summer has undeniably been too long: this is supported by statistics on recent years' observations. The Italians say: "There are no longer mid seasons" (things are no longer what they used to be). As a matter of fact, transition from Summer to Winter and vice versa looks like being stepwise. Everything happens from one day to another.

I think that our contemporary digitalized (quantized) perception of the events happening around us has irreversibly changed. Having grown old in the artificial, conditioned (thermally equalized) atmosphere of our offices, we have lost the ancestral capability to appreciate the little daily changes during season shifts. Now it's all either too cold or too hot.

It won't probably be the root cause but also for such, pressed by the media driven meteorological psychosis, I feel more than ever before the urge to exploit all opportunities for making quick tours on my mountain bike: alone or with my closest young "collaborator". Once again, my cranky mobile cam has been an invaluable tool, which I can't make without, for exploring and making experiments while pedaling.

Fungi Perfecti - II

Fungi Perfecti