Heavy weather

Strange clouds over our head. The sky looks like a brain. Or is it maybe the under-view of a soft sea turmoil up above?

Klippan on ebook

On my way to get started with a new PhotoBook, while I was upgrading Blurb's editing tool, BookSmart, I realized it is possible now to turn, push-button, every uploaded book into an electronic version and make it available off the shelf. So, needless to write, I pushed the button and there it is!

Blurb's eBook for Klippan

Additionally, once made this step I learned it was possible to submit the e-book to Apple iTunes. So there it is again on a different shelf:

iTunes' eBook for Klippan

Tivoli - VII

Still another picture from last summer raid in the old town where I spent my youth. The boy sitting in a spot of light filtering through the high windows of the town's main church (Il Duomo) is my son. He's just nine and he's getting every day more curious about the mistery laying behind religions, all those people crowding these public places, the ceremonies, the icons and their meaning. I'm not the right person to explain him all these things. I'm a scientist and my explanations would be biased. So I decided not to tell him anything. He'll attend a course in the next years and will be free to make his choices.

Vivian Maier

Self Portrait: Vivian Maier, 1953

Part of the huge recently discovered work from "nanny" Vivian Maier's (1926 - 2009) is on display in Brescia, at "Galleria dell'Incisione" till November 15. Click on the picture above to get access to some of her images or read about her life. A daily source of inspiration for everyone of us.

Summer 2008

A look at the sunrise

A look at the sunset

Frau "Solida" visions

''It took me more than a while to recover the lost tracks of such a mysterious - and lately disappeared - old German camera, Frau Franka, the "Solida". I had taken my rolls to a couple of photo-shops in town, as being a digital born pictures maker I don't have much experience with either and wanted to experiment different ways to get to the final digital scans. Yesterday I received a call from one of the two, saying that the roll was waiting for me and that they weren't able to make the scans: the impressions were overlapped and no one in the lab was able to take decisions about were to crop.''

He silently smiles at me and, casting an eye on the big watch hanging on the wall, adds: ''Looks like none was able to say whether this overlap was an artistic decision of mine or ... a terrible mistake! Someone from the lab had written *overlapping frames* on the envelop.'', this time he laughs, rapidly shaking his shoulders.

''So I came back home with a yellow plastic box in my hands and and made my way to my kids' room to attempt some scans by myself using my purposely cheap and unprofessional gear. The results are there ... let's drop it.'' Handing me a print, he nods to the tea pot still smoking on the table and asks: ''Milk or lemon?'' I look at a print of an roman temple standing in bright sunshine and say: ''Just a bit of sugar, thanks.''

- The 591 Italian reporter

Antica Osteria "Al Tempio di Ercole"

Summer 2008

A look inside

A look outside

Back in time

Tivoli, Tempio di Vesta

I've written some days ago that I sent out to lab two 120mm rolls exposed last August using an old german camera, Franka (see here the weblog dedicate to its World tour), from Solida Record, that we 591ers are passing each other, making it roam around the world. Having no experience and very little memory of the "analog photography" era, I left one roll to each of the photoshops close to my house and crossed my fingers.

I was really doubtful, if not really hopeless, about the results of my first analog shooting after fifteen years. Along with the Solida Record, that day I had taken my pocket Canon Powershot, with which I took care to digitally pre-shoot and analyse the context before wasting a film frame. I remember I realized very soon how challenging the alleys of a medieval town could be in a sunny August morning. Light is stark, vivid, so vertical and umpredictable. Shadows alternate with patches of bright light that make nearly impossible to distinguish the texture of the ancient buildings walls. I write this to say that my hope to get some good pictures out of those rolls was really low. Yet, reality turned out to be even more critical and cruel.

I was told that it would have taken at least a couple of weeks before having the developed negatives back. So I patiently waited till this afternoon. What I actually wasn't aware of was the price of this game. I heard from one of the shop owners I talked to that scanning one photogram would have costed one Euro, ending up to a significant - and not always sustainable - total cost. So I decided not to have the scan made by the shops and make an attempt with my limited gears. Before going forward with my story it's worth reinforcing my previous feeling that the cost of films development seems to be nowever nearly uncontrolled: one shop charged we with 2.30€, whereas the second one asked for 7.70€. This confirms my theory that, as the analog photography is no longer the core business of photoshops, its cost is set without any reason, where the service is still provided. It makes no longer difference. Competition is made on the digital layer.

So I took the developed films and rushed my home. Almost all frames were overlapping with the neighbour, meaning that I didn't consider some important factors, yet most of the exposed frames were clean and aparently in good shade, with fine (negative) details. I made my scans and went looking into them with Photoshop.

Oh my! What a bad surprise. What a blow! All the pictures are looking tremendously blemished, burned out and out of focus. This seems to be in contrast with the delails I can see through the negatives. So I thought it could be a problem of my scanner, which is mainly meant for copying traditional documents. I can't say which will be the recovery action, nevertheless I can't deny that I feel somehow satisfied of the resulting images. The bad exposures, helped by a films scan made with an improper tool, and the soft-focusing effect added by a scanner that was not made for pictures, give the picture a strange look, as if they were shot 150 years ago.
I have to leverage on this and be not ashamed of criticisms. I will present as many pictures as I can out of those taken with the Franka. Some of the preventive shots made with the digital camera have already been posted here and on 591. If you had the time, give them a look: you'd find out how much difference betwen the two processes is.

So, before closing and leaving you to my pictures, my question is always the same: is that effort worth being spent? Should we consider having a parallel analog track, instead of pursuing day after day the digital evolution?

Summer 2008

A look down in the valley below

A look up on the hill

Backnang, Summer 2008

Thinking back to what I spoke about with my friend Ulf, when I was in Stockholm three weeks ago, I decided to walk around this idle time of mine by looking into the pictures I took in recent years. So I took the hard-disk where I keep my old photograph safely (?) stored, this evening and blindly, without thinking, I pointed at one year and, once there, to one of many subfolders. By chance I picked up a couple of rolls shot when I was in Backnang, few kms away from Stuttgart, in Summer 2008.

Looking at them I wonder now how could happen that I didn't find the time to process none of all the pictures I took in that (photographically speaking) lucky and happy period of my life. I can just write it was after all a nice place to stay in the best time of the year with enough time at my disposal and very little colleagues' interference. For such I should not be so surprised having found a real mine of great stuff to work upon now on.

A look from the bridge

A look from my bed