They're all looking at me

There's nothing better than diving into the crowd and acting like a weirdo to win a growing sense of reluctance, shame, extreme cautiousness, lack of self-confidence and shorten the distance that you have put between you and yourself.

There must be a reason

... for which everyone feels the compelling need to leave a trace of his or her passage on this world.

Fine-Art

Summer has gone. Officially. On the calendar, as well under this grey, heavy and steadily rainy Saturday morning sky. There's little to do. Antonella is shooting new photos for the coming Xmas collection. I wander on the web, in search of something that makes my day. Looking through my favorite old photography links, my eyes fell the following definitions of Fine Art Photography:

1. Fine-art photography is the expression of a work resulting from the creative vision of the photographer as an artist. The purpose of fine art photography is to express a message or emotion. It differs from figurative photography, such as photojournalism, which displays a documentary visual account of specific subjects and events, faithfully representing objective reality rather than the subjectivity of the photographer's intention.

2. Fine-art photography is photography created in line with the vision of the photographer as artist, using photography as a medium for creative expression. The goal of fine-art photography is to express an idea, a message, or an emotion. This stands in contrast to representational photography, such as photojournalism, which provides a documentary visual account of specific subjects and events, literally representing objective reality rather than the subjective intent of the photographer; and commercial photography, the primary focus of which is to advertise products, or services.

From there, I jumped into the different definitions given on Wikipedia at the voice "Fine Art Photography". And since I was not totally satisfied, I turned back to the definition left for "Fine Arts". Which makes me wonder: "What have I been doing so far?"

Thoughts

This year's crop

This year's crop. Not that much, after all. What remains in my hands after the sad story I've just experienced is a lot of regrets and a handful for seeds to plant. I can only wish they will bring me new fresh energy and motivation.  

Everything comes to an end

Post Scriptum

These two pictures and the title I chose for the post could not be more (unluckily) predictive. I'm realizing it only now, some days after my father passed away.

Lesson Learned

I have no problems to admit how often, carried away by what remains of my juvenile spirit and unsuspected energies, I forget to respect even the simplest, reasonable and most evident rules.

I learned another lesson, this evening, if it ever was necessary to repeat the lesson: never attempt to climb a mountain in wintertime at dusk, when the sun is about to set. 

On the way up, panting like a steam-engine on a silent and desert road, sided by tall trees, you don't feel the temperature going down and down after each gained kilometre. Excited by the smell of the fresh and thin air, alone in the dimming light of the evening, you go higher and higher, with a pale and cold sun disappearing at your back, till you reach the top.

Only in that moment, when the road turns flat again on the saddle you've reached and prepare yourself for the descent, you realize it's getting quickly dark and terribly late. Forty kilometres and more of darkness are ahead of you, before you can finally put your bicycle back in the cellar. So, you pull up your neck, fasten your balaclavas, make some movement in the attempt to draw some blood back into your toes and let yourself gliding downhill.

Half scared and half excited, freezing in a mist that soon turns into a thick fog, you steer your gears at the light of your lamp, paying attention to every possible sign that can help you anticipate the bends or an obstacle on the charcoal. There's no much time to think, but your mind goes far anyway.

Passing by a cottage you cast your sight inside the kitchen, where someone is already about to sit for dinner. Some chimneys are blowing a wisp of smoke and you fancy about sitting in front of a hearth. Then your wishes come back on the street, as you hope not to meet a wild animal crossing the street. Hitting a chamois is the last of the experience you'd like to do, at forty, fifty kilometres per hour. 

At the end you get out of the fog and reach the first village down in the valley, from where a railroad runs along your cycling path. Worst case, whatever happens, there's always a station nearby, where to catch a train that takes you home. But you don't have time to think about a similar solution. You want to get home with your means. So, you switch your lamp by one level up and push stronger and stronger your legs on the pedals. 

9/11

The day in our recent history everyone remembers where s/he was and what s/he was doing.

Back to work

A too short Summer break. Actually no break at all.

Feels like gone back to fastening bolts.

The salt-soaked rope and the stranded trunk

How many stories do they know? Which of the two has more to tell the other?

Shot I

At last, the long wait is finished. I'm waiting for the fifteen minutes of observation time to pass before taking my bike and riding back home. I know: taking photographs is forbidden but this is a unique moment in a man's life. We're all looking in one direction, full of hopes.

I'm not much optimistic. The pandemic was an opportunity to learn something from our deeds, but I hardly think the mass has learned the lesson.

Old gears ...

... are rolling on.

Since my newest MTB is still, let's say, "not-functional" and waiting for proper restoration in the darkness of a cellar, I'm trying to do the best use of the old one that I had (too early) parked away and even thought to sell, if it wasn't for my son. These old, muddy and heavy gears, after a chain swap and mounting a new shifting cassette, are now taking me silently anywhere I want again. I'd better reconsider my plans to go for a flaming new bicycle again. I might not be flying anymore, but I love the idea of reaching a top with something as experienced as me.

A tough moment. Too much to accomplish in short time. No time for doing anything else but work. I'm trying to keep my commitment to walk for 5km a day,  least, not to fall into a state of mental boredom.

Waiting for better times

To deceive and pass the wait for the long night and the ritual new year's eve dinner, I convinced my son Flavio to take an aperitif walk on the snow, letting him taking my DSLR for some photos, thus taking advantage of an unexpected day of sun.

I'm not a good teacher. I simply let him use it and make trials. I only took care of informing him that I'll be here, willing to give him explanations, whenever he had questions to put. He answered that he already googled some topics and got the answer he was looking for. I must confess that I felt somehow proud of it.

Regarding the title: after all that happened this year, looking at its last sunset, should it have been otherwise?

(this was taken with my mobile cam)

For the very last day of the year I wanted to put up some numbers to recap the closing year on this pages. I've been able to post 213 times, including this one. That means a ration of about 0.6, almost two posts every three days. No tricks. I simply started using the blog as the mirror of my IG account, duplicating here (and when possible commenting) those pictures that I deemed worth of memory. 

In the hunters' lair

The week that's ending today has been very busy and full of events. At work, the group I'm managing passed an important project milestone with just one week of delay, compared to the date planned six months ago. Very remarkable! Something that I did not wait to comment in public as a source of pride for them and myself.

On the other hand, this has also been the week with the so-called "worse managers' day": the day when all managers are put together are called to rate the performance of their team-members (though I prefer saying "mates") and decide who to appraise and who ... not to. A real fight, whose consequences will last for the entire coming year. A good reason to reserve moments for a break and do some stress-down activities, like sport. Great and simple! Well ... actually not.

Given the humid weather, the shortness of daylight and a temperature constantly below zero, cycling has become almost prohibitive. Hence, I planned to start the winter season with a little jogging. But after my very first night run on the river banks, nearby my office, I had to re-frame my ambitions. Six thousands kilometres of road on the saddle didn't prevent a hamstring strain, causing me so much pain, to the point of barely being able to walk.

So, I redirected my attention to hiking and started taking long walks on the hillside around my working site during lunch breaks.

Initial Frost

I've got some thoughts about this picture but I'm not sure whether I'd better keep them for myself or not. I just feel that my thoughts are more and more often accumulating like trees cut down and left rotting in the undergrowth. I just keep putting off the moment when I'll write them down on, until exhausted I forget  about them. A huge mass of rotten ideas lays on the ground, making up a fertile humus that never gives life. The incoming winter frost will keep everything safe under a lying ice sheet.

Evening Glory

Sometimes you need luck: if we want to call it in this way. Or, as I repeat myself, you need a little of that sixth sense that tells you to stop your bicycle ride, interrupt your ascent and turn your sight to the sun. Sometimes that bell rings inside many times but you are submerged by many other thoughts. And you miss it. Some other times you are in a serendipitous state of mind, empty and silent ... and you catch it. And soon after you ask yourself: "What if I didn't stop? What if I was faster, today, and passed ten minutes before? What if I opted for a shorter track and ran down in the valley? What if I left my mobile at home?"

It's a matter on seconds. Seconds that you cannot enjoy when you are with company. And soon after you start your evening training again, knowing that you'll be late at home, that the road will be dark and perilous, that you have to switch the red light under your saddle and wishing that everything goes right along the steep and fast descent that you have ahead. But you don't care that much. What counts is having been so lucky to stop in the exact moment the sun was going down, behind the far distant mountains, while its rays were being scattered in a way that you'll certainly be asked if the picture was photoshopped.

Idling around

It's Saturday morning, in the time of the deadly virus outbreak. My wife and daughter have found a good excuse to go out and walk till the nearest post office. They have sewn some cotton protective masks to ship to Italy, to my parents in law. My son, instead, is locked in his bedroom, talking on-line in german with his girlfriend, after lazily attempting some homework. I am finally idling alone. After sitting at the sofa with a copy of the last number of The New Yorker and gazing, instead of reading, at the desert playground beyond our balcony, I remembered that I haven't done a backup for a while and dragged myself to the family laptop.
There won't be the shopping ritual celebration, today. After the plague has begun to spread here around as well, our shopping habits have changed. We prefer going out, "putting at risk our lives" in the most unusual times of the day, when the crowd should be hopefully at minimum. As such, this day is for free. Maybe later, after lunch, I'll put the nose out of the door and walk up to the top of the hill standing behind our building. My son wants to practice with the reflex camera. It's time I teach him something and pass the token on.
I'm rediscovering the joy of having half a day of time to do whatever I want: reading, giving water to the plants on the balcony, paying the TV tax on line or simply take care of long-deferred housekeeping duties, without waiting for late hours in the evening. My wife has made me notice that she bought me a mending kit, two days ago. She's been asking me to stop a couple of holes in our bedroom for so long that she nearly thought of fixing them herself. Now I have no excuses. I'll think about photography this afternoon.

Frozen

Let's open the dances for the new year with some pictures from my excursions on top of the hills, west of Graz, next to my apartment. Yes, I'm running. Even if not that bad, these days' cold doesn't allow me to go around by bike. I'll be on holiday till January 6, but kids are both preparing their school tests, which prevents me to go anywhere, as many others are doing already. Hence, I must exploit this unexpected spare time to make some sport and detox from the Xmas binge. Today, I made the tour of the Plabutsch hill, running around the ThalerSee and going back to Graz along the valley road. A good deal of time for testing y body and thinking about the things to be done in the coming days.

And ... yes, the lake was frozen but not that much. The ice is not so thick to let a human walking on it. Still, the sound of the resonance waves created by some people launching stones is amazing, never heard before.