Going digital I converted a Fujifilm XPro-1 to infrared with a 720nm filter. It was not an easy process to make the conversion but was a lot of fun.
Infrared can convert familiar places in something new and stimulate the brain to get out of the habits and see in a different way.

In this book, Boves, the little Italian town where I live seen in Infrared!

I participated with a series of images dedicated to the Italian life style. I chose to submit images showing the real life style, far from the crowded touristic spots where the landscape had been already modified to accommodate the expectations of the tourists.

I preferred to show real people in places where the soul of Italy is still present. Some places are little paradises, other urban environments affected by the decadence of the last years but all are still genuine.

Obviously the award is for images made with analog technologies. In this case all the images were realized on Ilford FP4 film with a Zeiss Ikonta from the 1930s.

Enjoy the pictures and check the Award page at www.analogsparksawards.com

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You can now, easily from the comfort of your home, buy some of my prints.

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Explore the collection and find the perfect piece to elevate your home or office.

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Merry Christmas and a Wonderful 2025 full of justice, freedom of speech and pruning of the governments’ trees!

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Christmas is the time to give what we have most precious. There was a time when gold, incense, and myrrh were rare, precious and essential in both their practical and spiritual nature. They were used to recognize the essence of Christ and the effort, choices and sacrifices we need to do each day to travel our life toward the Good.

In the modern times, where the world seems dominated by a diffuse evil stupidity, the most rare, precious and essential gifts we need to give are justice, freedom and a fight to limit the growing cancer of totalitarian governments.

The Wise Men showed us the way to make the world a much better place, where each of us is an equal son of the Lord, just by recognizing the daily choice between Good and Evil.

Every day we have to choose if we want to please Herod to have a semblance of power or if we want to honor Christ and have the long term goal of a better world for every human being, ourselves included.

Sometime is not easy to understand the direction we have to take but when on one side there is Herod, a king ready to kill or harm kids to not loose his power, censoring free speech, attempting to kill his opponents and growing exponentially the tentacles of his bureaucratic control, it is easy to see the path we have to take.

We chose the other side, the one representing justice, freedom and limited powers. May the Lord give to our modern Magi the force to pursue the Good in every choice they will have to make!

May the New Year bring us the freedom to produce, the peace needed to trade our products and a bright future of discoveries and great choices!

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If you are curious to see how I created the image, just check the video here!

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Usually for my Christmas photograph I follow the big events of the year, and you can see in this article what I did in the past, but this year I decided to stay far away from the world events. I simply decided that I had two choices: getting very upset with how the world is run and be very polemic and political or concentrating on my passion for photography. I chose the latter.

I decided to create an homage to film photography.

First of all in the last years I started to use again film for a lot of my artistic production. Second this year was a great year for film photographers; Leica produced again the film camera M6 and Pentax announced, just few days ago, that will again produce analog cameras.

It’s really a great moment for film photography because the involvement of big companies in the analog field means film is not dead and there will be a revival as there was in music with vinyl.

We have to remember we are analog creatures and sometime is fundamental for us to have analog experiences and spend our time far from the artificial digital world. We need it to remember we are able to enjoy infinite nuances, much more than a digitally converted world will be able to give us. We need analog experiences to remember that the human beings and our beautiful world cannot be translated in approximated numbers. We really need to remind to ourselves that the life must be lived in person and is not meant to be spend interacting with a computer.

I wish your 2023 will be full of analog experiences, in photography and in life.

At the origin of photography many technologies of printing required the exposure in UV light. At those time sun was the perfect source and the exposure was usually made outdoor. The quantity of UV light from the sun can vary a lot in different seasons or with different weather, plus, baby it’s cold outside now in winter! For this reason I decided to build a UV Box.

I was inspired by some similar projects videos on YouTube but I added a personal touch.

First of all I used an old wood box for wine bottles instead of a modern plastic box. The wood box was in my cellar, free, and wood looks better and more coherent than plastic with old techniques.

Second I decided to add a timer for a precise exposure instead of counting the seconds with an external timer and manually switch the lights on and off.

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Check out the video to know more about the UV Box and see how it works.

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I used very common components easy to buy online:

LED stripes: BTF-LIGHTING UV Black Light 5m 300 LED Strips, 5050SMD Ultraviolet 395nm-405nm

Arduino Nano

Arduino Display 1602A

Buttons: GUUZI 12mm

Switches: GUUZI 12mm, 16mm

LED: GUUZI 12V-24V 12mm LED

Power: MeanWell LRS-150-12 150W DC 12V IP20

5V Power: Greluma DC 12v 24v to 5v Step Down Converter 5A 25W

The 5V are derived from the 12V Power Supply with the Stepdown Converter.
The relays are on the 12V power supply going to the LED stripes and have the green LED in parallel.

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Here is the scheme of the circuit:

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Here the program I wrote for the timer:

#include <LiquidCrystal.h>
#include "Countimer.h"
#include <EEPROM.h>
Countimer tdown;
LiquidCrystal lcd(2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7);


#define bt_set    A0
#define bt_up     A1
#define bt_down   A2
#define bt_start  A3
#define bt_full   A4
#define LCD_CONTRAST_PIN 11
#define relON LOW
#define relOFF HIGH

int time_s = 0;
int time_m = 0;
int time_h = 0;
int set = 0;
int flag1=0, flag2=0;
int relay = 8;
int relay2 = 9;
int buzzer = A5;
int power = 0;
int contrast = 0;


void setup() {
Serial.begin (9600);
//set some defaults


pinMode(bt_set,   INPUT_PULLUP);
pinMode(bt_up,    INPUT_PULLUP);
pinMode(bt_down,  INPUT_PULLUP);
pinMode(bt_start, INPUT_PULLUP);
pinMode(bt_full,  INPUT_PULLUP);

pinMode(relay, OUTPUT);
pinMode(relay2, OUTPUT);
pinMode(buzzer, OUTPUT);

lcd.begin(16, 2);
analogWrite(LCD_CONTRAST_PIN, contrast); //set some contrast
lcd.clear();
lcd.setCursor(0,0);
lcd.print("   Welcome To   ");
lcd.setCursor(0,1);
lcd.print(" LB's Drunk UV Box ");
tdown.setInterval(print_time, 999);
eeprom_read();
delay(4000);
lcd.clear();
}

void print_time(){
time_s = time_s-1;
if(time_s<0){time_s=59; time_m = time_m-1;}
if(time_m<0){time_m=59; time_h = time_h-1;}
}

void tdownComplete(){
  lcd.setCursor(0,1);
  lcd.print("  Done  ");
  delay(3000);
  lcd.clear();}
 

void loop(){
tdown.run();

//read power
if(digitalRead (bt_full) == 0){power=1;}
if(digitalRead (bt_full) == 1){power=0;}

if(digitalRead (bt_set) == 0){
if(flag1==0 && flag2==0){flag1=1;
set = set+1;
if(set>4){set=0;}
delay(100); 
}
}else{flag1=0;}

if(digitalRead (bt_up) == 0){
if(set==0){tdown.start(); flag2=1;}
if(set==1){time_s++;}
if(set==2){time_m++;}
if(set==3){time_h++;}
if(set==4){ if(contrast < 254){contrast=contrast+1; analogWrite(LCD_CONTRAST_PIN, contrast);} if (contrast >= 254){contrast=254;};}
if(time_s>59){time_s=0;}
if(time_m>59){time_m=0;}
if(time_h>99){time_h=0;}
if(set>0){eeprom_write();} //EEPROM.write(addrCon, contrast); EEPROM.write(addrLum, luminosity);
delay(200); 
}

if(digitalRead (bt_down) == 0){
if(set==0){tdown.stop(); flag2=0;}
if(set==1){time_s--;}
if(set==2){time_m--;}
if(set==3){time_h--;}
if(set==4){ if(contrast > 0){contrast=contrast-1; analogWrite(LCD_CONTRAST_PIN, contrast);} if (contrast <= 0){contrast=0;};}
if(time_s<0){time_s=59;}
if(time_m<0){time_m=59;}
if(time_h<0){time_h=99;}
if(set>0){eeprom_write();} // EEPROM.write(addrCon, contrast); EEPROM.write(addrLum, luminosity);
delay(200); 
}

if(digitalRead (bt_start) == 0)
  {if(set==0){{ flag2=1; 
  eeprom_read(); 
  if(power == 0){
  digitalWrite(relay, relON);
  digitalWrite(relay2, relOFF);}
else {
   digitalWrite(relay, relON);
   digitalWrite(relay2, relON);}

  tdown.restart(); 
  tdown.start();
}}
  else {set=0;
  }
}


lcd.setCursor(0,0);
if(set==0){
  if(power==1){lcd.print("PW full    Timer");}
  if(power==0){lcd.print("PW half    Timer");}
}
if(set==1){lcd.print("  Set Timer SS  ");}
if(set==2){lcd.print("  Set Timer MM  ");}
if(set==3){lcd.print("  Set Timer HH  ");}
if(set==4){lcd.print("  Contrast:  " + String(contrast)+"  ");}
lcd.setCursor(8,1);
if(time_h<=9){lcd.print("0");}
lcd.print(time_h);
lcd.print(":");
if(time_m<=9){lcd.print("0");}
lcd.print(time_m);
lcd.print(":");
if(time_s<=9){lcd.print("0");}
lcd.print(time_s);
lcd.print("   ");

if(time_s==0 && time_m==0 && time_h==0 && flag2==1){flag2=0;
tdown.stop(); 
digitalWrite(relay, relOFF);
digitalWrite(relay2, relOFF);
digitalWrite(buzzer, HIGH);
delay(300);
digitalWrite(buzzer, LOW);
delay(200);
digitalWrite(buzzer, HIGH);
delay(300);
digitalWrite(buzzer, LOW);
delay(200);
digitalWrite(buzzer, HIGH);
delay(300);
digitalWrite(buzzer, LOW);
tdownComplete();
eeprom_read();
}

if(flag2==1){
    if (power == 1){digitalWrite (relay, relON); digitalWrite(relay2, relON);}
    else {digitalWrite (relay, relON); digitalWrite(relay2, relOFF);}
    }
else{digitalWrite(relay, relOFF);
     digitalWrite(relay2, relOFF);}

delay(1);
}

void eeprom_write(){
EEPROM.write(1, time_s);  
EEPROM.write(2, time_m);  
EEPROM.write(3, time_h);  
}

void eeprom_read(){
time_s =  EEPROM.read(1);
time_m =  EEPROM.read(2);
time_h =  EEPROM.read(3);
}

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As you see it is easy to build, it just requires some electronic/programming skills and a lot of patience. Buying a full 6 bottles box and drink them during the building can help the morale, I’m not sure about the results!

The book can be previewed and bought here on Blurb.

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I kept the book very simple, with a short version of the tales and just location and camera used for each picture.

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See you with the new projects…

If you prefer a video version, just watch it here, but if you prefer to read go on.

I’m really glad in January 2020, before the shit hit the fan badly, I decided to start my Black and White Tales project. It was a great way to keep myself busy and stay in touch with the world and my creative mind while we entered the Covid jail we still have to leave!

That project taught me a lot about myself and my photographic style and preferences. I got even more involved with film thanks to the images I found in my archive and really loved.

If you followed the projects from the beginning I owe you a big thank you. If you did not just click here and enjoy it. If you do not click and check it out nothing will happen to you but you will make me sad and that will perhaps heavily influence your Karma!

Another success of 2020 was the publication of my book about fine art ink-jet printing. It is the English version of the one I published few years ago in Italian and contains some obvious updates. Check it out.

The Black and White Spider Award is one of my favorite awards, it always have so many beautiful photographs submitted and very high standards. I had three images nominated, one in the Fine Art category and two in the People category. Not bad at all.

Photography for me is always a great way to meet new people and hear new stories.

In 2009 while photographing Ginseng farmers I took a picture of Abe Vang, a Hmong farmer who was a refugee from Laos and passed away recently. I always loved that picture because I felt a connection with Abraham also if we spoke for few minutes.

Craig Thompson, a comic book designer contacted me to use the picture for the issue about Abe Vang of his comics series dedicated to Wisconsin ginseng farming. It was great to learn Abe’s story and create a new connection.

Even in a shitty year I manage to have satisfactions from my job! Not bad.

Now the projects for 2021.

First of all I will take a break until the end of January, to organize myself and to relax a little.

I have no idea what the year will bring, but the beginning already brought a lot of censorship on social media so I will start to upload my video also on Rumble and move away from FaceBook and other traditional social media. You can find me on MeWe, if you like to stay in touch.

Photographically I intend to produce 10 magazines and 10 fine art portfolios, about 10 different places. I will continue to make videos and talk about the pictures involved in the project… Rumble or Youtube I will find a way also if I expect some censorship due to my libertarian ideas I have no problem to express.

I will also continue the Gear Talk series, so expect more reviews of old film cameras!

It is all for now, stay tuned and see you at the end of the month.

A project that helped me stay alive in this crazy world.

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I hope you enjoyed it, now is time for me for some postpartum depression and I will be back in January with other projects to share with you.

This image was taken in the same place and with the same subject as the Black and White Tale #1. Around 35 years between the 2 images and a lot of similarities and differences!

The image is a part of a project you can see here , about Giulianova harbor .

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See you next week for the conclusion of the project!