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I went to Jordan in the middle of September 2013 for work and managed to take some photographs; this is a small selection (I have some more on flickr).

In the first section here I tried to capture the aura of the Dead Sea. I will have to go back someday and bring my family because swimming in those oily, salty, incredibly warm waters is truly an unreal and somehow magical experience.

Start here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-19208480

The story is about Usain Bolt and the snapshots he has taken using a camera borrowed from one of the sports photographers following the Olympics. But this is not about Bolt, it’s about these ‘professional photographers’ that you see in this shot.

Even if some time has passed from the last Olympics, everybody remembers the scene: Bolt runs, Bolt wins, then he goes on to perform the self-celebratory track walk, closely followed by a pack of photographers shooting full-speed their big professional Nikon and Canon rigs.

There is a thin line that connects these photographs, but I also put a couple that I just enjoyed as they were (if only to stay true to my original intention of using these posts to display photographs that do not fit into a larger story).

Things I saw in Genova while walking around with Danilo, Daniele and Paola. All shots taken with a D600 and a 70-300 f/4.5-5.6. Other photographs here.

Street photography is real big now. All photographers do street photography. Everybody talks about it. But this is really getting on my nerves. I mean, these trivial shots of everyday life covered with fine-art pretensions given by a bland conversion to black and white – it’s really unnerving.

I am looking right now at 35mm Street, which is a very good example of this trend (for other similar examples just visit the countless examples of similar stuff on various Google+ groups or other similar venues).

It’s been years since I started using Google Calendar to keep track my sports activities. I guess there are countless apps to do this but all I needed is something basic that I can access from anywhere. Since I already have synced my iPhone with Google Calendar, I can basically enter data from wherever I am, even if there is no internet connection, and then have it synced back to my main repository on Google servers as soon as I’m back online.

Experimenting with interior shots. Il Montale, Parma (Nikon D600, 50mm f/1.4 AF).

The subtitle to today’s snaps refers to a special occasion that we celebrated cooking linguine (De Cecco, 7 minutes to make them ‘al dente’) con vongole.

I have been using iAccounts, a simple iPhone app to keep track of my passwords and other sensitive information, since 2011 (I also wrote a short note about it).

Recently David Pogue published an enthusiastic review of Dashlane; I tried it, got quickly pissed off because of the way it’s priced (sync between devices for a $30 annual fee? Are they nuts?), so what this review has done for me was only to renew my interest in finding a free, open-source alternative to keep my passwords.

There is a certain kind of photograph that creates a particular atmosphere, and even though it may not be related to actual weather events, sometimes it does.

Here there are a few of these “atmospheric photographs”; they were all taken within walking distance from where I live.

San Siro, Milan-Napoli. Il calcio non mi interessa ma vedere una partita del genere tra le prime in classifica resta un’esperienza che colpisce per l’intensità del tifo e la partecipazione della gente. Per non parlare dei soggetti che si incontrano e delle occasioni fotografiche che ti ritrovi servite nel proverbiale piatto d’argento (ho fatto tutti i ritratti comodamente seduto dal mio posto con l'85mm f/1.8).

Football does not really interest me but a game between two great teams that are winning everything does really strikes you for the ferocious intensity of the supporters. Not to mention the human types that you see and the many photographic opportunities that are served on the proverbial gold platter (I shot all these people from the comfort of my seat with the 85mm f/1.8).

First things first: it’s not at all a D7000 with a large sensor inside!

If that’s the impression you have from reading the rants in the dpreview forums, well it’s wrong. And you should stop reading those forums (I know, I should too! It’s just that sometimes something really clever comes up like the Dot Tune workflow to do AF fine tuning on Nikon DSLRs).

It’s actually a bit larger, not uncomfortably so however; it’s still sized very reasonably, but it’s more squat than the D7000 probably because it needs to accomodate that wonderfully large viewfinder. The overall feel is of a tougher and more grown-up camera than the D7000 (and the D7000 in my opinion is a perfectly mature body, a perfect compromise between the small and plasticky D3xxx/D5xxx and the hulky D700/D3/D4).

But street photography is about shooting people, and if you can’t get close to them to take your photograph, then you’re just not connecting with your subjects to begin with. It’s that intimate connection that really makes a difference in street shots. As Robert Capa once said: “If your photos aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.”

That’s what I have read recently; now, it doesn’t matter who wrote it, but this has become quite a common refrain people use when setting “rules” for street photography¹.

I want a Fuji XE-1. But I would not complain if I had an X-Pro 1. So there’s this contest where you can win an X-Pro 1 with the 35mm f/1.4, you just need to send two photographs and hope for the best.

I know that it’s totally delusional to even hope for the best but you never know.

Only two photos as I said: the first is already taken (“Yankee Cap”), so help me choosing the other one.

Ziano Piacentino, part two. Part one is in Weekly snaps #2.

Looking back at Weekly snaps #2 I can see some photographs that are similar, but not quite:

Old, manual focus 85mm AI-s, fully metal build and “made in Japan”.

New plasticky autofocus 85mm series ‘G’ here.

This is Bari by night, shot with Hueless on an iPhone 4S.