British Landscape Workshop – What’s In My Bag

In two days “British Landscape Workshop” will start. I’m proud to lead this great experience together with Alessio Putzu and Ivan Pedretti.

Since everyone in the gang is curious to know which gear I’ll bring with me, I have decided to take a photo of my photographic bag (backpack) content:

  • Canon EOS 6D
  • Canon EF 16-35 f/4 IS
  • Tamron 15-30
  • Samyang 12mm fisheye
  • Tripod Manfrotto 055XPRO3
  • Head Manfrotto 322RC2
  • Haida Filters (77mm) ND 0.9/1.8/3.0/3.6
  • Lee Holder 100 Series
  • Badpter 77mm for Lee Holder
  • Haida Filters 100 Series ND 0.9/1.8/3.0
  • Haida Filters 100 Series GND Soft 0.3/0.6/0.9
  • Lee Filters 100 Series GND Hard 0.6/0.9
  • Remote
  • Headlamp
  • Canon LP-E6 Batteries
  • AAA Batteries
  • Lens Cloths/Wipes
  • SD Memory Card
  • Camera Rainsleeve
  • Raincoat
  • Gloves
  • Neck Warmer
  • Terrascape Filters Bag
British Landscape Bag

British Landscape – What’s In My Bag

This is a standard setup when I go out landscape photograpy, I only add a zoom tele from time to time, but I use mostly wide angle lenses.

Milano Ready For Expo

Milano Ready For Expo

Milano is almost ready for Expo…

This week will be the Design Week in Milan and it is one of the most busy weeks in the year… so we are going to test if everything is in order before starting of Expo 2015 in a couple of weeks. :-)

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A Milano hanno quasi ultimato i lavori per Expo 2015… sono state costruite diverse strutture, strade e svincoli, ed è stata cambiata la circolazione automobilistica in diversi punti della città.

Da domani partirà il cosiddetto “Salone Del Design” che rimpiazza quello che era il vecchio (si fa per dire) “Salone Del Mobile”… probabilmente la settimana più frequentata a Milano grazie anche ai numerosi eventi del Fuorisalone.

Sarà un test importante per l’Expo che partirà in un paio di settimane… staremo a vedere cosa ne verrà fuori. :-)

 

Jökulsárlón: Lo Spettacolo Degli Iceberg In Movimento

Jokulsarlon Iceberg Flow - Iceland

Jokulsarlon Iceberg Flow – Iceland

Jokulsarlon Iceberg - Iceland

Jokulsarlon Iceberg – Iceland

Jökulsárlón, la laguna degli iceberg o laguna glaciale (come viene spesso chiamata) è una delle attrazioni più conosciute in Islanda. Si tratta di un bacino a ridosso del ghiacciaio Vatnajökull che nel corso degli anni ha cominciato a “scongelarsi” liberando diversi pezzi di ghiaccio che a seconda delle maree e delle correnti si muovono verso il mare o verso il ghiacciaio. Soprattutto nei momenti di cambio marea, si può assistere allo spettacolo degli iceberg che si scontrano, creando suoni spettrali in un luogo spesso silenzioso e avvolto dalla pace.

In 15 giorni di viaggio in Islanda, il tempo è stato altamente variabile, e soltanto in pochissime occasioni alba e tramonto sono stati “colorati”… questo in particolare è stato un tramonto davvero molto bello, con toni pastello rosa e blu, come accade nelle giornate di tramontana.

Fino a poche decine di minuti prima del tramonto, la giornata era stata piuttosto incolore… e quando ho visto il cielo iniziare a colorarsi in congiunzione con il cambio di marea, ho piazzato subito la macchina fotografica verso la foce della laguna, dove gli iceberg hanno cominciato a schiantarsi tra loro, creando dei suoni veramente da brividi. Anche visivamente era davvero emozionante vedere questi enormi pezzi di ghiaccio scontrarsi e sollevarsi tra loro.

Ho pensato di catturare questo spettacolo con una esposizione di circa 5 minuti complessivi per cercare di trasmettere il senso di movimento di questi pezzi di ghiaccio. Allego anche un’esposizione successiva di 2 minuti per mostrare come soltanto 2 minuti dopo i ghiacci sono rimasti totalmente immobili… magia e potere della natura!

 

English version:

Jökulsárlón (literally “glacial river lagoon”) is a large glacial lake in southeast Iceland, on the edge of Vatnajökull National Park. Situated at the head of the Breiðamerkurjökull glacier, it developed into a lake after the glacier started receding from the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. The lake has grown since then at varying rates because of melting of the glaciers. It is now 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) away from the ocean’s edge and covers an area of about 18 km2 (6.9 sq mi). It recently became the deepest lake in Iceland, at over 248 metres (814 ft), as glacial retreat extended its boundaries. The size of the lake has increased fourfold since the 1970s. It is considered as one of the natural wonders of Iceland. (source: Wikipedia)

This was one of the best sunset experienced in the 15 days trip to Iceland in mid March 2015.

The weather wasn’t so good during the day, but at sunset clouds started to flow away and few pastel colors started to jump in.

As soon as I started seeing the change in tide, I decided to take this long exposure to capture the iceberg movements and the reflection of the colors over the lagoon.

When icebergs started to collide each other and against the lagoon bank, very creepy and scary sounds could be heard over the silence of the lagoon at sunset… but the show is worth the “ticket”. :-)

Le Cinque Terre

The Cinque Terre area is a rugged portion of coast on the Italian Riviera (located in the Liguria region, to the west of the city of La Spezia). “The Five Lands” comprises five villages: Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso al Mare. The coastline, the five villages and the surrounding hillsides are all part of the Cinque Terre National Park and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Over the centuries, people have carefully built terraces on the rugged, steep landscape right up to the cliffs that overlook the sea. Part of its charm is the lack of visible corporate development. Paths, trains and boats connect the villages, and cars cannot reach them from the outside. The Cinque Terre area is a very popular tourist destination.

Here are few photos I took over time.

Ciao Ciao Canon EOS 5D Mark III

Oggi ho preso una decisione molto sofferta (fotograficamente parlando)… ho venduto la mia amata Canon EOS 5D Mark III.

In fin dei conti si tratta di una “cosa”… ma anche alle “cose” ci si affeziona, soprattutto quelle “cose” che aiutano ad esprimerti, che consentono di fabbricare ricordi, sogni, emozioni… ci si affeziona non per il valore, ma per tutto ciò che la “cosa” stessa rappresenta e stimola in noi.

Grazie per questi due anni… questo è l’ultimo click insieme… in un posto dove tante volte siamo stati a “giocare”…

Questa foto è esattamente ciò che la fotografia rappresenta per me… un ricordo, una visione, un sogno, un’emozione…

Buona luce… e grazie!

Arco Della Pace

Arco Della Pace

Roma – Photographic Meetup

At the end of 2013 I have organized a photographic meetup with some friends of both Flickr and Mighty Gorgon Forum.

Roma - Gruppo Fotografico

Roma – Gruppo Fotografico

We were more than ten enthusiastic photographers, we met before sunrise at around 6 o’clock and we started photographing at Castel Sant’Angelo… then we moved through the Tevere to Isola Tiberina and finally to EUR for few modern architecture shots.

We had a great time together… and here you will find some pictures I took:

What Makes An Image Popular?

Today I have discovered that creating a picture which can have a “social” appeal you don’t need to waste hours in studying techniques or art or simply having a “photographer’s eye” (like Freeman would say!)… but it’s enough to follow some basic rules.

A group of researchers (MIT researchers… not the average Joe…), after a long study, propose an algorithm which with a correlation of 0.81 on the real result can predict the level of success of a picture published on Social Networks!

The paper it’s quite interesting (from a sociological point of view) and you can find it here:

http://people.csail.mit.edu/khosla/papers/www2014_khosla.pdf

If you want to make a test with a simplified version of the algorithm, you will find it here… so you can check in advance your image popularity:

http://popularity.csail.mit.edu/

Obviously… like all rules… there are exceptions! :-)

 

Good luck!

Astrophotography

I’m proud to announce that I have just updated the website by adding a new category in the gallery about astrophotography.

This kind of photography is quite difficult, because it involves several aspects:

  • Good photography technical skills: exposure, aperture, ISO, photo stacking, multiple exposure, etc.
  • Good photo gear (or solid knowledge on how to reduce noise and minimize unwanted trails): sharp lenses and camera with a good digital noise management at high ISO are crucial. There are few things that can be fixed in post production through bias and dark frames, but this still require good technical skills.
  • Places with low light pollution.
  • Clear sky and low humidity.
  • Stars location and sky map.
  • Being able to focus and compose in complete darkness.
  • A lot of other minor things…

I’ll stop here for now… but I promise I will write another article on how to capture Startrails!

Here is the gallery, I hope you like it.

Venezia

In November I’ve been to Venezia (Venice) just for one day with my friend Pierino only to take some pictures. We’ve been lucky with the weather, it was quite warm even it was the 1st of November.

Just few months later I’ve been able to finish reviewing and postprocessing all of the pictures I took… Here you will find a selection of them. I hope you appreciate.