date » 17-07-2026 16:50
permalink » url
tags » alex majoli olympus camera, magnum agency, camedia c 5050 as leica camera, reportage black and white, street photography, tumberwald, foto lampo potenza, publifoto carrese, allah akbar, via pretoria potenza italy,
© archive manunzio
Ilford papers...mon amour
What a slice of life, a true marvel. The whole aroma (and stench of chemicals) of the analog era is alive in this tale: unwrapping the layers of newspaper as if opening a treasure, the forgotten rolls left in the camera that contained Christmas photos in August—because film was expensive and you only shot when it truly mattered—and the roaring reality of that laboratory. Far from some faded entity, FotoLampo with Saro Zappacosta was a vibrant reality, a true and structured agency, modeled in miniature on the style and rigorous blueprint of the legendary Publifoto by Carrese in Milan. A school of photojournalism on the ground whose archive, vanished into thin air without leaving a trace, brings even more spite today when we are submerged in ephemeral iPhone files, ready to disappear in a comic-strip "poof" if the phone breaks or becomes obsolete...continue
date » 20-03-2026 07:23
permalink » url
tags » the little prince antoine de saint-exupéry, street photography, ansel adams we don't take, calogero cascio italian photographer, sun light, urban life, geometry shape landscape, olympus c 5060 wz, thumberwald, the eye as a trade,
© archive manunzio
"Occhio come mestiere"—the eye as a trade. This is not just a title from the 1970s; it is my reality. Like the craftsman described by Calogero Cascio (italian photographer of street or reportage tout court), I don’t just "take" a picture (as sayd Ansel Adams photographer); I make it with an eye that has been trained since the analog era to see what is invisible to the machine.
When I look, in this case before and after editing at right, I see a shadow that has ceased to be a mere absence of light. It has become a volto—a profile, a silent witness carved into the peach-colored plaster by the sun. While the silicon "terraglia" of modern sensors sees only a luminance value to be leveled or a pattern to be filled with 1s and 0s, my eye recognizes the gaze of the building itself. This shadow-face has a weight that digital algorithms can never replicate because it depends entirely on the living, fleeting relationship between the stone and the sky.
By cutting the "inopportune" light, as if shielding the lens from a false, I allow the true character of the silence to speak. It is the interiority of a city made visible found in the geometry of a beautiful day. The beast of automation as silicon offers a dead perfection, but to truly "hit" the mark, one must look with the heart, the lungs, and the gut. It is a craft of the spirit (The Little Prince of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry) where the diagonal line of a roof isn't just a shape, but a breath.
date » 12-02-2026 10:41
permalink » url
tags » mannequin, street photography, urban life, olympus c 5050, manfrotto monopod, artificial light, show room for lady,
© archive manunzio
The photograph captures a storefront mannequin in a composed, seated pose, executed with a dramatic chiaroscuro that recalls the meticulous light control of the analog era. Using the void as a structural element, the composition employs a sharp fall-off to isolate the subject, effectively cutting the inopportune reflections of the glass. While the white jacket maintains texture through careful exposure, the focal point remains the ethereal glow where the head should be, highlighting a surrealist detachment. This is not a search for commercial perfection, but a conscious exposure of the vacuum behind the artifice. By framing the elegance of the garment against the emptiness of the form, the image functions as a clinical observation of appearance versus substance, stripped of sentimentality and focused on the core geometry of the scene.
date » 19-12-2025 12:03
permalink » url
tags » follow-focus, panasonic S1, panasonic L-mount adapter, yashica 55mm analog macro lens, android tablet, digital still life, digital photography, digital sensor,
Top view close-up of my Panasonic camera S1, fitted with a superb 55mm macro lens by Yashica (1970s) adapted for digital use and capable of rendering extremely sharp detail. Attached to the focus mechanism (the left side of the lens) is a follow-focus system, which eliminates the need to touch the lens directly. The lens is wrapped with a special silicon knurled ring that interfaces perfectly with the follow-focus, enabling micro-adjustments that would be nearly impossible to achieve by free-hand. An excellent solution—one that literally came to me in a dream. Yes, sometimes I dream, because I know how to imagine solutions that turn out to be exactly right.
The follow-focus or not follow-focus...
Let’s be clear: certain tools genuinely help us. What are they? Simply put, they are devices that assist with manual focusing, especially when working with non-autofocus lenses. They become even more valuable— as shown in the image—when analog-era lenses are reused on digital camera bodies via the appropriate adapter. And if a lens was already excellent in the Analog Era (as discussed earlier), you can be confident it won’t disappoint in a digital context.The entire setup is supported not by a full rig, but simply by an L-shaped bracket, with multiple mounting holes. A small rod attached to it holds everything securely and works flawlessly. Even the USB-C cable, which transfers images to an Android tablet used as an external monitor, passes cleanly through the bracket.
Ps. I used a macro lenses Yashica (on S1 Panasonic Lumix) because I need sharpnes in still life images tout court, hovewer procedure is not recommended for making a videos. Vice versa attached (via adapter) the old Four Third Macro 35 mm equivalent on M43 Lumix GH4, an big piece of lenses.
date » 22-11-2025 08:48
permalink » url
tags » zeiss optics, zeiss 60 mm analog macro, analog-digital adapters, leica brand, sony brand, rangerfinder, leica rangefinder, history of photography, panasonic s 1, L-mount consortium sigma leica panasonic, analog era, yashica 55 mm macro, yashica contax mount, still life, reprodia, kodachrome, modern times movie chaplin, vintage or not vintage,
Two eras compared: on the left, the legendary Contax RTS, here SLR version rather than rangefinder, or the alter ego of the Leica, the rangefinder of photographic history; on the right, Panasonic's Lumix (part of the consortium with Leica & Sigma, or the famous, or infamous, depending on your point of view, L-Mount attachment) therefore essentially Leica (many Panasonic lenses, no less than Zeiss for Sony, for example, bear the Germanic name Elmarit, etc., and when absent rest assured that it is still the “same” optical recipe by Solms-Germany) the "rivalry" no longer so. In fact, with the advent of mirrorless cameras (once called Evil-Devil, not by chance), it is possible to "mix" things up with mechanical adapters, sometimes even optical ones, so that the two analog-digital systems communicate well with each other. In fact, on the left, cover, with its fiery red T, the Zeiss Macro 60 f.2.8, a marvel, thanks to a simple tube (in the case L-Mount) allows mounting on the Panasonic-Leica for exquisitely sharp frames, even though the optical formula was created for the analog Contax Rts, and in digital: chapeau. On the far right, ‘small’ only in appearance, another legendary analog lens, the Macro 55 mm f. 2.8, but from Yashica, which in the early 1970s Brand had a joint venture with Contax/Zeiss, as times of a well-orchestrated oil crisis, like the current standoff between Russia and the West, forced German manufacturers to land in Japan; even Leica signed a deal with the famous Minolta, which was later absorbed by Sony. Gears, in other words, all mechanical and manual wonders, not only to reproduce the legendary Kodachrome slides from the Manunzio archive, along with tons of 120 format slides, but also every still life, perhaps in combination with Helicon focus, no less powerful than aforementioned, which allows, among other things, a pan-focus (everything in focus) of the objects on the set or tresette, a fine game.
Vintage or not vintage this is question...
Integrations or syncretism? There was a time when, perhaps somewhat Manichean, categories tout court did not dialogue with each other, quite unlike the current scene where, on the contrary, they do.Technology as a domain (let's not forget) rather than “liberation” in the broad sense. The subject is difficult and lends itself to a thousand conjunctures, if not enormous contradictions. However, if we look at it critically, there are situations that make us exclaim: oh, the invention of hot water, as if the liquid had always been made possible. Yet we need the liquid, then wood and fire, a boiler to contain it, a tub to bathe in, but also suitable public baths for ‘washing’. And even Therme and their Calidarium... as we can see, it's much complex than just saying ‘hot water’. And so we come to the point. Lenses, crucibles, glass melting and... Zeiss on one side and Leica on the other, above all, incompatible. Optical marvels and excellence, no doubt. Then someone (clever minds?) ‘stirs up’ the fan bases, the worst thing for those who have nothing else to do but idolize, regardless, the mere ‘mechanics & optics’ lines per millimeter, abreactions...Modern times, which is not the Charlotte/Chaplin film, but perhaps a little infamous, as we are currently experiencing. Is this the brief return of the reviled analog vs. digital? Not quite. Syncretism is the magic word that allows the industry to continue to survive while waiting for the final collapse as iPhone Android in the broader sense...let's be clear, but let's stop here.
search
i
⛶
