Pietro Coppa

But where has everyone gone? Why is there no human presence in these photographs, except in the form of a few fleeting traces…

There’s one thing I’ve often noticed, and the trips I’ve taken this year in Italy and abroad have confirmed it once again: the small towns scattered throughout the countryside, in the mountains, or overlooking the sea all look somewhat alike. Obviously not in their outward appearance—some are modern, others ancient;…

Just a little out of place, slightly out of context—details that subtly contradict the overall meaning of the image

Upon returning from a trip to the Caucasus, I began reviewing the photographs I had taken and reflecting on my impressions—fleeting and incomplete, as is only natural, after just a few days as a tourist. And from my brief stay in Armenia, I brought back some contrasting and contradictory impressions:…

I therefore present a few images, almost all taken in my neighbourhood during July, little notes on the everyday grotesque that this heatwave brings into sharper relief.

Nothingness is nothing; it possesses the horror-tinged allure of gazing into a void, of the absence or flight of human figures. It is at once minimal and infinite.

  Two hands, thirst. Rome, Terrazza del Pincio, 8 June 2026. Hands are important; they are our universal toolkit that has made a fundamental contribution to our transformation into human beings. They are flexible, mobile, and usually very photogenic as well. And they are one of the most expressive parts…

The heat, the exhaustion, overtourism have a detrimental effect on many of those who visit Rome alone or in droves.

When we want to capture a person’s expression or thoughts, or portray them, we focus on the face or the full figure or on certain other elements…

Photography, by isolating a fragment from a continuum of time and space, is well-suited to producing images that capture this moment of ironically unstable equilibrium, of anticipation of which the subjects are unaware.

Photography is a rather strange art form: whilst it starts out as a realist art, one soon realises that things are a fair bit more complicated and ambiguous.

Dreaming of being shipwrecked in the land of the Phaeacians. Rome, Via Alessandro III, 20 January 2026. Suave, mari magno turbantis aequora ventisE terra magnum alterium spectare laborem;Non quia vexari quemquamst iucunda voluptas,Sed quibus ipse malis quia cernere suave est.(Lucretius, De Rerum Natura. Book II, lines 1–4) Lucretius had already…

It can happen that one photographs something solely for its form or for some mental association, without there being any obvious or clear reason to transform something as fleeting as a quantum fluctuation—which appears before the lens, giving shape to nothingness—into a finished image. Just as particles can appear out…

A few issues with the passage of time. Rome, Via San Francesco a Ripa, 25 March 2026. It may seem strange, but when I go out with a camera, I don’t have the mindset of a hunter; I don’t go looking for photographic subjects along a set route or according…

Time, too, remains suspended in an indeterminate limbo: there are no longer stories or fleeting, frozen moments…

I would simply like to let the images speak for themselves; the loneliness and isolation of men and women in the modern world have been discussed at length – perhaps even excessively so – over the last two centuries, and what more could I possibly add?

We speak of a metamorphosis when something changes its form and transforms into something else:the frog that becomes a prince after a kiss in a fairy tale, or Daphne, seized by Apollo, transforming into a tree in Bernini’s marvellous sculpture. These, however, are illustrated, didactic metamorphoses that leave no room…

With pride, a sense of duty, and justifiable satisfaction at a hard-won victory, the people in arms wave the sacred flag of the homeland, without asking themselves too many questions about what sort of homeland it is, and the war photographers are there, ready to capture that supreme moment; usually…

With a bit of luck, an eye for detail and a touch of irony, it is possible to extract interesting images even from the most banal and tedious aspects of daily life.