The days are long, but the years are short.

I’ve come across this sentence online several times lately. And when I think about this year, there are fewer than ten days I truly remember for what they were.

Looking back a year, the number is even smaller.

Sometimes, while I’m living through something, I tell myself:

I’ll never forget this moment.

Then a few years pass, and I can’t even remember what was happening or why it felt so important.

I’ve always found this part of life frustrating.

All those experiences, conversations, and moments are gone. And we don’t even know where they went.

Sometimes, if I concentrate hard enough on a specific period of my life, I can open a few storage barrels on the shelves of my memory and retrieve fragments of it. More often, it’s a smell, or sometimes a sound, that suddenly brings back a place, a person, or a season of life.

Yet the vast majority of time is lost somewhere beyond my reach.

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A few friends and I recently spent an evening at an old balera, a dance hall where people, mostly older generations, gather to dance traditional and classic songs. During a break, one of them said:

I’m remembering my grandparents. I was still a kid, watching them dance. I was mesmerized by the two of them moving like they never did at home, and I was there. I can still feel everything I was feeling that night, like it just happened.

I loved that moment because it confirmed something I’d been thinking about.

We seem able to remember only the moments in which we were in relationship with what we were experiencing.

Most of the time, observation looks like this:

But the memories that stay with me always feel like this:

Whether it’s a landscape, two people dancing, or a flower, I only seem able to remember it when I also remember myself within that moment.

I believe, for most of our lives, we live in that first arrow.

Me → the thing.

Asleep within a thin layer of reality, convinced we’re living while, in truth, very little is actually alive inside us at that moment. All is mechanical.

I think that’s why I love photography. It forces the arrow to point both ways, to be present not only with what I’m looking at, but with myself while I’m looking.

I guess the years don’t feel short because we don’t have enough extraordinary experiences or because we don’t travel enough.

They feel short because we spend so much of our lives in that first arrow, living a mechanical life.

And nothing can be recorded while we’re sleeping.

I invite you to try this on your next walk, and always come back to it.

Much Love,
F

After a rough three months, my only desire was exactly this last one. Go back to Sicily. Feel that energy, see my family, ride the hills where I grew up. There are colors, light, smells there that make me always ask the same question: why did I leave?

Anyway, a few days in, I wasn’t happy at all.

I was more stressed than before.

The spring fields I’d been dreaming of didn’t move me. The food tasted like nothing (and if you know Sicily, you understand how serious that was). The light wasn't calling me like it always did.

I had too many plans. I transformed the whole stay into a to-do list with a tight schedule. In one single day, I tried to fit: a run in front of the sea, a visit to my barber, chasing wildflowers with my grandfather, playing pool with a friend, a drive to a nearby town for material and inspiration, taking my 4x5 camera out looking for stories.

I treated myself like a f google calendar at work.

I had so many things to do that I forgot to live.

One afternoon, a friend and I had no plan. The only thing we wanted was to be together, and I wasn’t ok with that. I needed to finish the day with something done.

We started driving, talking, and ended up at a small gathering. The conversations felt hollow to me, though looking back, the hollowness was mine, not theirs. We left. Kept driving.

Then a wheat field appeared in front of us.

I don’t know why it stopped me. There was nothing exceptional about it: flat land, green rows, a sky that hadn’t decided yet between day and night. But for the first time all trip, I had no impulse to do anything. I just stood there and stared.

There was nothing, yet I felt full.
Then my phone rang, and I woke up to life.

I always loved a quote from Marcus Aurelius, taken from his personal diary Meditations 2.14. Here you go.

This is the second time in a month I find myself writing about time. If you missed the previous one, find it here.

I see how it sometimes plays dirt. I envision myself doing small movements, stretching, writing. Everything I like to do is presented to me with my eyes closed. The mind is super reluctant to be paused.

And then I remembered.

That time, as a young teenager, at my grandma’s place. She was never able to walk properly or move in my memories. But she was a great cook, like most grandmas in Sicily, and her eyes were filled with joy at every visit of one of us, the kids. She was living her life through our reflections. Making her happy was a way for me to feel the same. Same happiness, same feeling of fulfillment. Nothing at that moment was more important than that. For half an hour, I was satisfied. For 30 minutes, I felt alive.

I don’t remember my schedule at that age, but I was always able to find moments during the week to spend time with her.

Life goes on, and that moment no longer exists.

So, what had I replaced it with? Where have those weekly hours gone? If not visiting her, what am I doing now? How am I filling that space?

I’m not sure. And if I had to take back 4 hours of my week now to dedicate to something so important, it won’t be easy, but I have an idea where to find it.

I’m aware I now spend way more time in front of a screen. If I’m not working on a laptop, I have a smaller one that always catches my attention and draws me to something more interesting than what I’m currently doing. And that is now taking such a big portion of my day.

I’m also aware that there are so many little things that give the illusion of getting something done, but in reality, they're just easy ways to waste time.

Being intentional is so hard.

For a full year, I dedicated 20 minutes a day to stretching and slow movements. Now it seems impossible to find time for it, but at the same time, if I look at my conversations with AI, I realize I have spent such a big portion of my daily time talking to a machine.

Stretching is a long-term game, a slow release of joy. The other gives me a boost of energy that dries me as quickly as it brings me up. But it gives me this feeling of progress, which can be misleading.

This is nothing new to humans. Seneca, as quoted already in a previous episode, spent most of his life philosophizing on this topic.

Seneca was right already two thousand years ago. We guard money, possessions, and status. But time slips through our hands because no one asks us directly how we want to spend it.

The world offers endless juicy suggestions.

And if we don’t build a strong shell, a big circular aura to allow only the things we want inside, we might feel empty far too soon.

Big News From Me

My work “I was not there, I am here” has been selected for a Merit Scholarship at Chico 2026! I’m currently in Montana, and starting tomorrow, I’ll dive into this incredible experience with the Chico Review. If you’re not familiar with it, my friend shared his experience last year in a fantastic, long post.

Until the next one,
Much love.
F

Here are the two mentioned posts:

Frame The Journey

CHICO REVIEW 2025

It's a lengthy reflection, I know, and it might not capture every nuance of the experience, but these words truly represent the depth of my feelings about the Chico Review. (The post may be too long, see it through Substack App…

Read more

a year ago · 19 likes · 9 comments · Francesco Aglieri Rinella

"E il mio maestro mi insegnò com'è difficile trovare l'alba dentro l'imbrunire."

“And my teacher taught me how difficult it is to find the dawn within the dusk.”

- Franco Battiato

It’s a song I composed almost entirely in a state of meditation. I had a harmonium and would begin very gently; a small fragment would emerge, very slowly. It was a process of great charm, not neurotic in mood, very relaxing, until it was completed.

Until the next one,
Much love.
F

I see it as the engine of everything we do. And lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what exactly builds up this force inside ourselves. Having values, actions, and decisions aligning in the same direction is a major contributor.

When I start to act against my values, I start to lose faith in myself. The opposite is true as well. I feel huge power when everything aligns.

So it’s always a good idea to review the values I base my life on.

Being always on the move, not owning a house or a place, escaping from a life that might look the same every day, has been a dear and lovely constant. And I was scared to even think about the idea of settling.

And yet, at some point, something started to change inside me.

It was not sudden, and not because of a single event. It was more subtle than that. I assume it was an accumulation of fatigue.

After Nigeria, I didn’t feel the urge to move again. For the first time in years, the idea of staying didn’t feel like losing freedom.

This confused me.

Movement had always been one of my certainties. One of the values I used to define myself. And if that certainty was no longer there, I didn’t know how or with what to replace it.

Around that time, I also watched Perfect Days. And I loved the dignity and intimacy of repetition. The idea that a life doesn’t need to be constantly changing to be meaningful.

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It forced me to ask questions I had probably been avoiding:

Earlier this year, I was presented with two opportunities. One would take me back to the life I knew, splitting my time between continents. The other offered me the possibility of staying.

I knew almost immediately which one I needed. But accepting it felt like betraying a version of myself that had carried me for years.

For weeks, I felt stuck between these two identities.

For the first time ever, I saw the two parts of me battling, and instead of being an active arbiter, I just let them continue their match, just observing, sometimes overlooking, but never intervening.

It was exhausting until eventually, they found peace. And I trusted that feeling. There’s no way to know if a decision is right. No sign, no confirmation. Just living.

Sometimes I truly wish there were a God of Decision to say: “Yes, this is the right choice you’re making right now, my friend”. In a way, it’s like when I run: if I get a green light at a crossroads, I interpret it as a sign, this is the right moment and place I should be, good choice running today. But there’s nothing like this in life.

The outcome is not on us.

Only the way we decide to live the moment is.

So I’m going to enjoy every bit of it until the next match arrives.

One Photobook For You

I visited Japan in January (yes, with all these thoughts in mind) and, beyond the food, culture, and landscapes, I fell in love with its photobook culture. That’s how I discovered Dream by Hashiguchi George.

It’s a collection of portraits and conversations with elders across Japan. He asks simple questions:

• What did you eat this morning?

• What gives you joy?

• What is your dream?

Reading their answers felt like looking at possible future versions of ourselves, shaped by the choices we make today.

Here are some that stayed with me:

Until the next one,
Much Love

I’m happy to kick off the New Year with a conversation we had during the final days of 2025 with .

He is a Spanish photographer whose work I have long appreciated, and who has recently published a body of work that deeply challenges our perception of permanence. What moved me about his work is this continuous searching in the world that surrounds us.

A dance between harsh and magical.

I’m sure you’ll enjoy the conversation and collection of images. Words and photos are from his work.

1/ You come from a background outside of photography. How was your initial approach to the medium, and what was it about it that finally allowed you to express things that other languages couldn't?

JM: Yes, I came from the world of painting, but it cannot be said that painting is foreign to photography, since both are devoted to framing something. The fact is that photography gradually began to infiltrate my painting until the latter disappeared. The camera offered me an immediacy and a precision that painting could no longer give me at that moment. It was not only about recording reality, but about confronting it. Photography allowed me to work with time, with the trace of the real, with what happens in front of the lens and cannot be repeated in the same way. While painting demanded a slow construction, mediated by the hand and by matter, photography placed me before an instantaneous, almost ethical decision: when to look, when to stop, when to frame. In a way, photography gives you the same rhythm as life because it does not allow drafts.

Moreover, I discovered that I could say things through photography that other languages did not allow me to say, precisely because of its ambiguity.

The photographic image appears objective, but in reality it is loaded with choices, with silences and absences. That tension between what is shown and what is hidden strikes me as intensely fertile. Over time I have understood that I have not completely abandoned painting, but rather transferred its questions—about space, light, composition, and the gaze—to another medium that better fits my concerns.

Photography encompasses all languages, and perhaps the one it encompasses most is sculpture, even though it may seem implausible. When I take a photograph, I do not imagine the result as an image, but as a sculpture. I do not think about the final rectangle or its flat surface, but about the weight it would have if it could be held in the hands. The camera then ceases to be an optical instrument and becomes a carving tool.

Within the frame already lies the sculptor’s gesture, deciding where the body ends and where the void begins. This was precisely what, many years ago now, led me to put down the brushes and pick up a camera. Even today, a friend will occasionally ask me why I stopped painting. With irony, I always answer the same way: I no longer want to dirty my hands in this world unless it’s to wipe my ass. And I say this with great respect for painting. It is rare that one of my series does not contain some reference to painting.

2/ There is a quote from John Berger that reminds me of your work: “A photograph is not necessarily a lie, but it isn’t the truth either. It’s more like a fleeting, subjective impression... while recording what has been seen, it always and by its nature refers to what is not seen. It isolates, preserves, and presents a moment taken from a continuum.”
In your images, I see suggestions rather than absolute truths. When you look back at a body of work like Malparaíso or Fordlândia 9, how were you able to find the emotional balance between what you chose to show and what you chose to keep away?

JM: Berger is always an inspiration—thank you for mentioning him.

Looking back, I think balance was never a prior calculation, but rather a consequence of listening long before photographing. In Malparaíso and Fordlândia 9 I understood quite early on that I was not there to explain a place or to “reveal” a truth, but to inhabit a sensation between what the territory offers and what resists being said.

What I decide to show almost always arises from a bodily, visual intuition. There are images that ask to take root, and others that, even if they are “good,” feel invasive or overly conclusive. Those latter ones usually stay out. Not out of modesty, but out of distrust toward the image that closes meaning too quickly. I am more interested in photography that opens a question than in photography that answers one.

In Malparaíso, for example, the gesture was to work through drift and fragmentation. The place, although nonexistent as a geographical point—in other words, imagined—already carried a strong narrative load—historical, political, symbolic—and any attempt at frontalness turned it into illustration. So I opted for photographs that evoked. What remains outside is just as important as what appears, because that void activates the viewer; it forces them to complete the image from their own memory or discomfort.

Fordlândia 9 was different, but the dilemma was similar. There, the weight of the myth was enormous. Showing too much meant reaffirming an already familiar narrative: ruin, failure, exoticism. The emotional balance lay in deromanticizing without stripping away mystery. Choosing not to photograph certain obvious icons was a form of respect, but also a strategy to let the place breathe without becoming trapped in its own legend.

In both cases, what I kept out is not a secret I hide, but a space I yield. I deeply believe that an image should not say everything. When a photograph becomes too eloquent, it leaves little room for the experience of the other. I prefer it to function like a crack or an escape: something that suggests, that unsettles slightly, that cannot be exhausted in a single reading.

In the end, that emotional balance resembles an act of restraint more than one of affirmation. Photographing, for me, is not about possessing the visible, but quite the opposite—possessing the invisible. Though in this, I am sure many photographers would disagree with me.

3/ I’m a big fan of your journaling paired with contact sheets. It feels to me as if you are laying down stones for a memory that is still incredibly fragile. Could you tell me about the relationship between the written word and the image in your process?

JM: Contact sheets function as a kind of testing ground for memory. They are not only an archive of the “before choosing,” but the record of a sustained doubt. There, the image has not yet become an icon; it remains probing, repetition, error. Words then enter not to explain the photograph, but to accompany it in its fragility, to admit what I no longer remember clearly, what has already begun to shift or be lost.

Writing near the images—not about them—allows me to accept that all memory is provisional. Words fix an emotion, a suspicion, a minimal context; the image, by contrast, resists, keeps looking back from another time. When I bring them together in my notebooks, I am not seeking coherence but a kind of echo. Characters, places, and motifs appear, disappear, and reappear just when I thought I had forgotten them.

Perhaps that is why you speak of “placing stones.” I like to think of it that way: small markers in unstable terrain. Not to build a monument, but not to lose the path back entirely, even knowing that this return will never be exact. Writing points; the image doubts. It is in that tension that my work begins to breathe.

Once, a photographer told me he had many doubts when choosing an image. I told him that this was a blessing, that doubting was the best thing he could do.

I always remember an Arab proverb that fits a photographer perfectly: He who does not doubt does not look; he who does not look does not see; he who does not see is blind.

Therefore, doubting is the best thing a photographer can do if they do not want to go blind.

4/ In your work, there is always more questioning than answering. Project Home is a search for a definition that perhaps doesn't exist. How has your own vision of "home" shifted through your years of wandering and photographing? Are there specific questions you think we should be asking ourselves to get closer to the truth of what home is for us?

JM: For a long time, I thought of home as a place one returns to, as Ulysses did. A fixed point. But home is not so much a place as a constant negotiation between the body, time, and memory. When Ulysses returns from his travels, only his dog, the old Argos, recognizes him. Today I think of home more as a fragile state than as a structure—something that appears and disappears. What is happening in Palestine should open anyone’s eyes.

Questions? I think we could ask quite a few: What parts of ourselves need to feel safe for a space to become habitable? How much of what we call home depends on other bodies, on other presences? What are we willing to lose—or leave behind—in order to call something home?

Perhaps we should also ask which memories we actively sustain and which we allow to fall away. If home is a place of belonging, what do we really belong to: a territory, a language, a shared history, or a version of ourselves that no longer exists?

Wandering and photographing have not brought me closer to an answer, but they have brought me to a partial certainty: home is not found; it is sought.

I have a series I have never shown called Uterus or Invisibility, in which I tried to dismantle the idyllic images often projected onto the house and onto permanence within it: a place where, materially, one should be able to trace one’s own identity. This is what is expected—or feared—depending on the case. But being at home, most of the time, is something very different, almost more foreign than being a foreigner abroad. Curiously, it is the only one of my series to which I have never been able to give an ending or maintain a constant follow-up. For a reason, no doubt.

Thank you for being part of this journey.

Until the next one,
Much Love

Project Home, this newsletter, is one of them. For the last few months, it has existed in my mind as a thousand possible new episodes, while I haven’t sent a single update. At the same time, I’ve been surrounded by people who, by consistently delivering something, have taken part of what I wanted to do, stepping into spaces I once imagined for myself. This dynamic, which should push me to create more, instead breaks me down and locks me in a state of paralysis.

It started with “who cares if I skip one time.” That one time became six months for me. The more I saw people doing what I had envisioned, the more blocked and unable to continue my own writing and interviewing I became.

Not that I haven’t done anything at all. In fact, on a creative level, this has been by far my most wonderful year for photography. Nothing can compare to the feeling of what I was able to create in Nigeria, and I’m so happy and proud of it in a way I can’t wait to put it out in the world. So what, then, is this feeling?

After much reflection, I believe it comes down to having the cost of my choices slapped across my face, completely without respect.

Not writing was, overall, a conscious decision. With limited time and mental bandwidth, I had to choose carefully how to spend my energy. And, there was not even an internal discussion; I knew I needed to liberate my mind from everything to give full space to photography.

Yet, when I look back and see that others have achieved what I had in mind, it truly eats at my brain. I find myself actively hiding from their news, just to keep my mind away from putting me down for the whole day.

What I’m coming to realize is that there is always a hidden cost to every choice we make. Something has to be excluded. And that there is no competition, except the one we battle against ourselves. All the talk of “not having time” could be an excuse created by my own brain to defend itself from the consequences of inaction.

A few weeks ago, my grandfather was telling a story, and he mentioned he has two voices talking in his head. This was exactly how I was feeling all this time, constantly confronting these two different characters inside me.

When I asked him if there’s an end to this conflict, he smiled and said: “The end only comes when you decide to do so. The real end is understanding which voice to follow in the moment.”

This is what I now believe. The more I look at what others do without acting, the more the world becomes one road, already packed and taken by others.

But the more I spend time creating things I love, the broader the view becomes, more like a huge natural park.

And I am the architect of that space.

That’s why we’re gifting this beautiful pot to one reader of Project Home.

How to enter:

1. Follow @clay_of_lagos on Instagram.

2. Leave a comment below sharing your favorite moment or insight from the interview.

{Optional but hugely appreciated} Forward this newsletter to a friend who would enjoy Project Home 🌍🤍

I’ll randomly pick one winner in 10 days and ship the pot directly to your home!

I’m a huge believer that what makes one country unique, along with its demographic aspects, is really the people. Our life is an intricate cloth formed by thousands of interactions. The same shirt I’m wearing today has been handled by a multitude of hands and undergone various human interventions before arriving at me. That’s the reason why I’d love to tell you about Nigeria through its people.

While researching Lagos, I came across a video of Idris, the ceramic artist behind @clay_of_lagos:

The moment I saw his work, I knew I needed to meet him and bring his story to Project Home. He was generous enough to welcome me into his studio, the same space where most of his videos are filmed. We spoke about:

1. How a failure led to a surprise

2. Discovering passions and letting them shape a life

3. The influence of growing up in Nigeria

4. And, of course, what “home” means to him (the answer is so good)

I leave you here with one of my favorite parts from the interview:

Once we fail, we see it as a stepping stone to greater things and to the goal we are achieving, so we don't fail and relax or give up; as engineering ceramic artists, what most of us do is recognize failure as a blessing that allows us to fail forward, move on, and accumulate knowledge, because in trying to solve one problem we uncover ten more lessons beneath that particular failure, which makes us brilliant to some extent, so I don’t even see it as a challenge but as a blessing, since that is what makes us unique.

Until the next one,
Much love.
F

I’ve been stuck on my writing for Project Home over the past two months. What I’m doing here arises from that inner space we all have that drives us to create, that space we call “I don’t know why, but I feel I need to do it.”

I’ve tried to sit down multiple times, playing with a few triggers I know make the writing ball roll: music, headphones, candlelight, nature, early morning. Nothing helped. My mind was always thinking “how can I tell stories of home and belonging, when at this exact moment there are people losing everything they have?”

I have no interest in politics, nations, borders, or races, as I believe all of these are just layers of difference-building, forgetting we are all the same thing. The only difference we have, over which we have no control, is the fact that we were born in different places that have shaped our lives completely. Understanding how powerful this is can alone remove all ideas of conflict.

Still today, my mind cannot find any reasonable explanation for what is happening to thousands of people around the world. Families and houses destroyed by the decision of a few, starving people who now see their lives completely swept away, lost futures for young generations whose only fault is to be in the “wrong” part of the planet.

The information economy has changed the way we now experience wars. And photography is also playing a major role.

The Biafra conflict in Nigeria, a topic I’ve been researching a lot after spending so much time in this country, was a tragedy whose true scale was initially downplayed on the world stage. Mass killings were happening everywhere, kids were dying of hunger due to the blocking of food transportation, human rights were violated every second. Yet, it was only one year later, when information spread and photos were published in journals, that other countries became interested in it and started to act (some just to get a piece of the cake from the proclaimed peace. Doesn’t that sound familiar?)

I’m sure that, one way or another, all of us have come across images and videos of the human disaster happening in Palestine.

And I can even bet we’ve all seen so much that, unconsciously, we’ve built a mental filter to avoid being bombarded by it and to keep living our lives as always. We go to work, on holidays, to parties, projecting our future. But there’s no justice nor empathy for people using this type of power over lives they have no right to control.

As Susan Sontag observed in her thoughtful essay Regarding the Pain of Others, photographs of atrocity have a dual, contradictory power. They shock us into awareness, but their constant repetition can also numb us. They make horror a spectacle.

What is our responsibility when exposed to this knowledge?

Krishnamurti taught that the world’s chaos is a reflection of our own. The fragmentation of humanity into tribes, religions, and nations begins with the fragmentation within ourselves.

"You are the world," he said.

Perhaps that is where responsibility begins. Not in finding a grand solution, but in refusing to participate in the divisions that cause the conflict. It begins by looking at the images of suffering not as a spectacle, but as a reflection of a shared humanity that has been broken.

It begins with understanding that the home being bombed is our home, because the people inside are us.

Until the next one,
Much love.
F

May has been a rough one. I spent most of the month in Lagos, Nigeria. And like nowhere else, this city makes me feel there’s no space for writing, reading, or even watching a movie. My brain naturally shuts down when it comes to fiction. The information I get from the streets is too intense, and I need time to simply process it.

As said, I didn’t write for the entire month, so bear with me if this is a bit longer than usual. There are three things I’d love to talk to you about:

• Sebastião Salgado 📸

• A city I can’t stop thinking about 🌁

• One year of Project Home is coming soon 🎈

Amunì.

A person who made the world his home

As soon as I heard about Sebastião Salgado’s passing, I knew I had to spend a few words on him here.

Years ago, my brother told me to watch The Salt of the Earth. He said he saw a reflection of me in it. So I did.

At the end of the documentary, I was devastated by the images. But more than anything, I felt a wave of determination that only comes from understanding the power of hard choices.

Salgado spent his life documenting the human condition.

From gold miners to civil wars, from workers to unknown tribes. His aim was clear: to place humans at the center of political discourse. Photography was the tool he chose to do that.

Thank you, Sebastião.

Invisible Cities

I lied earlier. I did read something.

One book made it through the chaos: Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino.

Calvino was, and still is, ahead of his time. This small book is full of imaginary cities, but the more you read, the more real they feel.

I want to gift you my favorite: Despina.

Italo, forgive me for my blatant copy-paste, but I’m sure someone here will relate so deeply that they will walk down to the corner bookstore and get their own copy.

Italian version (Original) below.

Despina can be reached in two ways: by ship or by camel. The city displays one face to the traveler arriving overland and a different one to him who arrives by sea.

When the camel driver sees, at the horizon of the tableland, the pinnacles of the skyscrapers come into view, the radar antennae, the white and red wind-socks flapping, the chimneys belching smoke, he thinks of a ship; he knows it is a city, but he thinks of it as a vessel that will take him away from the desert, a windjammer about to cast off, with the breeze already swelling the sails, not yet unfurled, or a steamboat with its boiler vibrating in the iron keel; and he thinks of all the ports, the foreign merchandise the cranes unload on the docks, the taverns where crews of different flags break bottles over one another’s heads, the lighted, ground-floor windows, each with a woman combing her hair.

In the coastline’s haze, the sailor discerns the form of a camel’s withers, an embroidered saddle with glittering fringe between two spotted humps, advancing and swaying; he knows it is a city, but he thinks of it as a camel from whose pack hang wine-skins and bags of candied fruit, date wine, tobacco leaves, and already he sees himself at the head of a long caravan taking him away from the desert of the sea, toward oases of fresh water in the palm trees’ jagged shade, toward palaces of thick, whitewashed walls, tiled courts where girls are dancing barefoot, moving their arms, half-hidden by their veils, and half-revealed.

Each city receives its form from the desert it opposes; and so the camel driver and the sailor see Despina, a border city between two deserts.

In due modi si raggiunge Despina: per nave o per cammello. La citta' si presenta differente a chi viene da terra e a chi dal mare.

Il cammelliere che vede spuntare all'orizzonte dell'altipiano i pinncaoli dei grattacieli, le antenne radar, sbattere le maniche a vento bianche e rosse, buttare fumo i fumaioli, pensa a una nave, sa che e' una citta' ma la pensa come un bastimento che lo porti via dal deserto, un veliero che stia per salpare, col vento che gia' gonfia le vele non ancora slegate, o un vapore con la caldaia che vibra nella carena di ferro, e pensa a tutti i porti, alle merci di oltremare che le gru scaricano sui moli, alle osterie dove equipaggi di diversa bandiera si rompono bottiglie sulla testa, alle finestre illuminate a pianterreno, ognuna con una donna che si pettina.

Nella foschia della costa il marinaio distingue la forma di una gobba di cammello, d'una sella ricamata di frange luccicanti tra due gobbe chiazzate che avanzano dondolando, sa che e' una citta' ma la pensa come un cammello dal cui basto pendono otri e bisacce di frutta candita, vino di datteri, foglie di tabacco, e gia' si vede in testa a una lunga carovana che lo porta via dal deserto del mare, verso oasi d'acqua dolce all'ombra seghettata delle palme, verso palazzi dalle spesse mura di calce, dai cortili di piastrelle su cui ballano scalze le danzatrici, e muovono le braccia un po' nel velo e un po' fuori dal velo.

Ogni citta' riceve la sua forma dal deserto a cui si oppone; e cosi' il cammelliere e il marinaio vedono Despina, citta' di confine tra due deserti.

One year of Project Home is coming 🎈

When I sent my first newsletter, I was excited. That kind of excitement a new adventure brings, a sprint of adrenaline that pushes all boundaries.

But just an hour later, I was nervous. Terrified.

I didn’t really know what I would write about next. And I had just 13 days to come up with a full story.

Funnily enough, that feeling never left me, but still, I managed to put out 25 episodes, feature great photographers, and bring in more than a thousand of you. That’s wild. Really.

To celebrate, I invite you to send me one photo of what HOME means to you. No description needed, replying to this email is more than enough.

You have time till Thursday, June 5th!

Until the next one,
Much love.
F

It’s the first time I come back to Europe after a long, intense month in Lagos. Among all the challenges of living there, running at 6:30 AM with 34°C and 95% humidity has been one of the toughest. The sweat kicks in before even starting to move.

I wanted to let life soak in more before turning what I lived into stories. But the truth is, my mind is still wired in one direction, so here it is, a few raw, incomplete frames of what life in Lagos,

Nigeria, looks like.

Before diving in: last week, I published two interviews with brilliant writers and curators here on Substack, you can check them at these links: The Sunday Interview & Darkrooms Magazine.

Below is an extract.

“What I love about photography are its limitations. You’re presenting a frame of a continuous and ever-changing life, capturing something that no longer exists. And if done well, it has the power to move souls and change the world for the better.”

perfectlight

The Sunday interview: 5 questions for Francesco Latino

Today I will present Francesco Latino the author of Project Home. Francesco is a photographer documenting the idea of home for people around the world…

Read more

a year ago · 67 likes · 14 comments · perfectlight and Francesco Latino

LAGOS, NIGERIA

The following short videos are intentionally made without explanation, like a quick blink into a life that is not ours.

Enjoy them and let me know which fragments you would turn into a full story.

Balogun Market: the very first and mandatory stop in any new city

Street Barber: Stories told by old clippers

Makoko: Life inside a floating world

Lekki - Epe Expressway: the heart of Lagos Island

Growing Fish: Where every piece of land becomes the way to live

Let me know if you enjoyed this minimal interactive format.

Until the next one,
Much love.
F

I talk about the first impression from Lagos in this episode:

A good friend of mine asked me this when I told him about my latest movements.

I’ve been writing Project Home every two weeks for almost a year now. Yet this time, I felt like skipping it was the right choice. At the end, who would even care if I didn’t send a new story?

The truth is: I would.

I realized how easy it is, when life changes suddenly, when something new takes over, to leave behind what used to feel right.

New city, new pace, new people.
The old becomes old too fast.

Over the last two weeks, I stopped reading. Stopped writing. Stopped watching movies. Anything that involved fiction, I shut it out. It wasn’t a decision, I just couldn’t find the space for it. And I think the reason is in the sentence below.

Life brought me to Lagos, Nigeria.

A place I never expected to see this year. And yet, as soon as I landed, something changed inside me. My sense of reality. Of presence. Of how life works.

Let me give you a few facts from this place before going on:

• Home to 22 million people, the most populous city in Africa. More than London & Paris combined.

• Lagos contributes to >30% of Nigeria's GDP.

• 65% of Lagosians work in the informal sector: street vendors, tailors, mechanics, drivers.

• Capital of Afrobeats: Fela Kuti’s Kalakuta Republic was born here, and now dominating artists like Davido, WizKid, and Burna Boy.

• Heart of Nollywood, the second-largest movie industry by output.

• >60% live in informal housing.

• In just two years, the Naira (local currency) has lost 71% of its value against the dollar. Salaries have barely moved, but food and housing prices have skyrocketed.

Enough for now.

I left my camera at home for days. I didn’t want to be chased by the thought “I need to create something”.

I don’t care about content. I don’t care about going viral. I don’t care about monetizing. When content becomes the priority, the magic of life experiences goes away. And I didn’t want that.

There’s no middle ground. No greys. No in-between.

Either the sun eats you alive, or rain floods the entire city for days.

Either you're a millionaire, or you're working 20+ hours a day to make a living.

Either you eat spicy or you better stay far from food.

Either you make it, or you don’t.

That’s the brutal beauty of this place.

And yet, this city is giving me a lot. And I respect it for this.

I don’t know yet what’s coming next.

But I’m slowly returning to the things that keep me grounded. Still learning how not to feel like an alien. And maybe in the future, when it feels right, I’ll tell some stories from this unique place.

For now, enjoy a few snaps made around the city.

And if you have a link to Davido, let’s make these twins’ dreams a reality.

Until the next one,
Much love.
F

📨 Older episodes you may have missed:

This episode comes with a short movie. Watch it in the app or open it from your email by tapping the “Watch Now” button above!

I vividly remember that morning. The alarm rang at 3:30 AM. Silvano had told me to reach the harbor early if I wanted to jump on a boat with some fishermen.

So I woke up, took my bike, and started a 15-minute ride to the beach. The moon lit the streets with that soft glow that takes a few minutes for your eyes to adjust to. The air was cool, and the only sound was the distant crash of waves against the rocks.

It felt like the night was still part of yesterday.

When I arrived, I found them at the bar. And I finally understood why I had to go so early. This was the real beginning of the day. All the fishermen were there, telling stories, making jokes, and drinking espresso. They would never admit it, but over the years, the act of fishing had become second nature, a passion that consumed them. And the real reason to wake up so early was to see the friends they had grown up with at the bar.

One of them turned to me and said, "Forty years we've been telling the same stories. But sometimes, we forget them. And when we tell them again, it’s like the first time. We laugh all day."

We left the harbor at 4:45 AM, and for the first two hours, no one spoke.

I watched them work. Thick hands, precise movements. They didn’t need to look at each other to coordinate. They anticipated. They knew.

I imagined myself doing this every day for forty years. I respected it, even admired it.

But I already know it’s not for me. And that’s perfectly fine. I’ve spent years searching for my meaning of home, trying to shape my path, doubting, questioning, wondering if I’m making the right choices. I’ve seen friends and people I know achieving incredible things, while others are still figuring out their way. And that’s fine too.

Watching these two fishermen, I understood the power of knowing where you belong and where you don’t.

Everyone has a unique life, shaped by birthplace, family, ambitions, studies, and opportunities. And the real treasure is that it’s yours. No one can be me, just as no one can be you.

Carl Jung once wrote:

"Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. If you follow the path of someone else, you will not realize your own potential. The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are."

For these men, home is that bar and the sea.
For me? I’m still looking.

Hope you enjoy the movie. If you do, let me know.

Until the next one.
Much love,
F.

Read more here:

“To be in exile is simply to have left one’s country and to be unable to return. Every exile is a different, personal experience. Myself, I wanted to see the world and photograph it.”

In today’s episode, I want to try something new. So far, I’ve conducted direct interviews or documented places and communities I’ve personally visited. But I feel there’s room to introduce deep dives into the lives of specific artists whose sense of belonging and concept of home have shaped their work. I couldn’t think of a better artist to start with than one of my favorites.

Josef Koudelka’s Concept of Home

If you’re unfamiliar with him, here's a short introduction: Josef Koudelka, born in 1938, is a Czech photographer. He is one of the great representatives of the humanistic and poetic tradition that dominated European photography. But beyond his iconic work, what fascinates me most is his life. A constant movement, a deliberate rejection of the conventional idea of home.

As you will read below, during his life he tried to “own nothing” and rather focused on the experience itself and the connection with other human beings. I don’t think I’ve ever felt a stronger connection to a way of thinking, living, and creating than I do with his.

Every word from this point forward is taken from interviews and journal extracts. Most of them to be found in “Josef Koudelka Next - A Visual Biography by Melissa Harris” published by Aperture.

“I knew that I didn’t need much to function – some food and a good night’s sleep. I learned to sleep anywhere and under any circumstances. I had a rule: “Don’t worry where you are going to sleep, so far you’ve slept almost every night, you’ll sleep again tonight. And if you sleep outdoors, you have two choices - to be afraid that something might happen to you … or accept the fact that anything might happen and get a good sleep, which is the most important thing you need to function well the next day.”

“There is nothing more beautiful than to sleep under the stars. To look at the sky and wait until you see Vega, Arctutus, and all these other stars. The stars become your friends too. What you see above you, it puts things into proportion: what you are and what you represent — what you mean in all of this.”

“I’ve always considered myself lucky to have been born in Czechoslovakia so that I didn’t get used to certain things that were taken for granted in the West… When I lived in Czechoslovakia, freedom for me meant mainly being able to do what I wanted… I didn’t need to go somewhere far away to take photographs.”

“Only once you get back to your country after twenty years, to the country where you were born, do you realize how much you’ve changed, and that the town, visually, didn’t change much, and the people didn’t change either… What changed you was everything that you went through, what you saw, where you lived… The return from exile is nearly as strong as leaving for exile.”

“I’ve never aspired to have the perfect home, to be tied to something like that. When I bought my home, my main requirement was that I could work here. I live in Paris – this is just another part of my traveling life. I don’t need to fill houses with clothes. I have two shirts that last for three years. I sleep in them. I keep my passport in the top pocket and some money in the other. I wash them in one go and they dry quickly, it’s very simple. I only carry things that are needed: my cameras, film, and a spare pair of glasses.”

“For 17 years I never paid any rent. Even the Gypsies were sorry for me because they thought I was poorer than them. At night they were in their caravans and I was the guy who was sleeping outside beneath the sky.”

“Every time when I wake up in the morning… I have incredible pleasure to be alive… It’s very good to have nothing, because wherever you go you’ll find more… In the moment you start to defend what you have, you are lost”.

And to finish…

Letter to his parents, London (June 1971)

“Dear Parents…

I’m still well and have a good appetite for food and work and for everything, mainly life.

I can afford a luxury that most people in the world cannot afford TO DO THINGS FOR MYSELF AND WORK FOR MYSELF and not for money or some bad and stupid superior bosses…

I have everything a man needs for life…

I thank you very much that I have been born.“

I hope you liked this episode and if something, start to appreciate the place you belong to.

Until the next one,
Much love.
F

I quoted Josef Koudelka already in the past on Project Home, read it in the episode below:

It stands along my usual running route in Sicily, just before the last hill, the point which sends a good sign to my mind: “You’ve made it again!”. The tree sits at a good distance from the street, alone in the middle of two hay fields. I watched it grow, and it silently watched me grow, too. A relationship built without words, purely through presence.

I often told myself I should go closer, sit beneath it, and maybe take a couple of photographs.

The last time I ran, the tree was almost gone. A lightning strike during a huge storm hit it and opened it up in two. I felt crushed. I blamed myself for all the times I postponed, thinking: it’s a tree, it will be there tomorrow as well. I usually welcome change, but this felt like a pure loss.

I was looking for an anchor of stability in a constantly changing world.

And I failed at it.

A few weeks after the storm, I finally fulfilled an old desire to visit a small island, learning from my mistake that postponing is not always a great choice. The trip involved a five-hour drive and a 30-minute ferry ride, enough to keep me from going before, but this time, I crushed all sabotaging thoughts and went all in with it.

I like to arrive in new places at night.

The night gives you a unique image that will be completely different the next morning. The place shows its most hidden secrets and intimacy only to the few who are willing to see it. Once I arrived, I took an hour-long walk to release my legs.

The island smelled of life: sea, plants, secular trees, and flowers. It was the confirmation I needed that I had made the right choice.

Choosing that place was easy. Many photographers have crossed the island, and I remember as a kid seeing their work and fantasizing about how great it would be to live those experiences.

The island is famous for its ancient Tonnara and its rais, the chief, who has always represented the island's core values.

While explaining what I was doing with Project Home, everyone looked at me with tender eyes and said: “You should have come 20 years ago. The Tonnara closed, and the people you’re looking for are all dead.”

As it happened with the tree, I felt deluded again inside.

The reality is that small changes and new technologies, change our days imperceptibly, but they hold this exponential power to completely modify the reality we live in within a few years. I couldn’t stop thinking about how quickly things disappear, and how easy it is to believe we have infinite time.

That’s why it’s so important to document the time and places we live in. Our traditions and cultural heritage are there until they’re not.

Luckily there are still people who, with patience and love for the place, are telling stories to the ones who are on the lookout for them. Listening to them made me conscious of how a place can forge people’s souls.

Islanders live in this extreme symbiosis with the sea. It’s their home and the force they know better than anything else.

It’s here where I met Silvano. His short story is told in the video above, at the beginning of this email/post. (click play to see it)

I hope this inspires you to find meaning and a sense of belonging in the fleeting moments around you before they too become part of the past.

Until the next one,
Much love.
F

If you have lost the previous episodes, have a look below.

I don’t really know anyone.

And even more, I don’t know this person sitting next to me during a 12-hour flight. That jacket is oversized for him, and his legs look way longer than normal. Can’t believe he’s walking barefoot on the plane. I wish I could see what she’s drawing in her notebook. From her eyes and skin color, she looks from the East. Does she draw every morning? How can they run a million-dollar startup today? I remember talking to them years ago, they were very excited about this. Sofia texted me again, I wonder if she knows I love her, it’s eleven years of selling my love as pure friendship. This band is out of the world, extremely talented people. I’d like to go on a tour with them one day. But how? Who knows if Willy understands time as we do. The vet says that dogs usually don’t get time properly as they only live in the present. Who can explain then why every time I come back after a trip he’s so excited?

I think I don’t know anyone.

But I always think about that night in July, you dressed up so well just to go to the pizza down at the street corner. Andrea says this tells so much about a person. He looks so annoyed today, it’s been one week that we don’t talk like we usually do. Tomorrow it’s Pinuccia's 80 birthday, she cooks the best food in the world. I want to live so long too.

I believe I know you.

Because when I see that look on your face, I know it means you had an amazing day at work. The dimple when you laugh it’s so you. With a new child coming, your life will be brighter than ever. I just know he’ll be a boy. Your mask may fool everyone else, not me. You can pretend to be something you’re not, surround yourself with strangers, and never look back again. But I’ll always know you.

I know it.

We live in a world of abundance, where every piece of information is either given or received, and the mind keeps following paths created by others instead of carving its own.

I invite you to reopen this email/post at different times of the day, in two months, or whenever you feel it’s the right time. New meanings will appear, or at least, this is what I hope.

A Letter From Seneca

If you pay close heed to the problem, you will find that the largest portion of our life passes while we are doing ill, a goodly share while we are doing nothing, and the whole while we are doing that which is not to the purpose. What man can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is dying daily? For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed. Whatever years lie behind us are in death’s hands.

Hold every hour in your grasp. Lay hold of to-day’s task, and you will not need to depend so much upon to-morrow’s. While we are postponing, life speeds by. Nothing, Lucilius, is ours, except time. We were entrusted by nature with the ownership of this single thing, so fleeting and slippery that anyone who will can oust us from possession. What fools these mortals be! They allow the cheapest and most useless things, which can easily be replaced, to be charged in the reckoning, after they have acquired them; but they never regard themselves as in debt when they have received some of that precious commodity,—time! And yet time is the one loan which even a grateful recipient cannot repay.

- I. On Saving Time (Greetings from Seneca to his friend Lucilius, 65 AD)

📨 Older episodes you may have missed:

Until the next one,
Much love.
F

This project began as a way to explore what home means across different places and cultures, using photography as the main medium to support the storytelling. And when I saw För in my local photobook store, I instantly felt this book was more than a collection of images. It was a whole and unique world, it challenged the idea that home is a location.

If you’re not familiar, I highly recommend you to follow and check her work here.

Iceland is often shown as a place of epic landscapes, untouched nature, remote locations, and almost uninhabited. But Agnieszka’s work is the opposite. Her images are raw, intimate, and full of life. They introduce us to the people who have built their lives there, in extreme weather, in close-knit communities. It’s a side of Iceland most of us have never seen.

In this short interview, we talk about her journey, and most of all, we talk about home and belonging.

👇 Here’s what to expect in this episode:

🎧 Timestamps

• 00:00 - 00:48 | Introduction

  • Meet Agnieszka and discover the book.

• 00:49 - 6:01 | The Origin of För

  • How an email led to the creation of the book.

  • Why working without a fixed project may unlock creative freedom.

• 06:02 - 10:35 | Photographing Iceland Differently

  • Beyond breathtaking landscapes: why people are at the heart of Agnieszka’s work.

  • Finding beauty in everyday moments rather than grand scenery.

• 10:36 - 16:06 | Large Format Photography

  • Spending 35 years with the same camera.

  • Combining film and digital photography in Iceland’s wild weather.

• 16:07 - 21:08 | Defining Home

  • “Þetta reddast” mentality.

  • What truly makes a place feel like home? (Hint: it’s not the location)

• 21:09 - 23:22 | Advice for Those Afraid of Change

  • How creativity can help you build connections in a new place.

• 23:23 - 23:50 | Closing Remarks

  • Enjoyed the episode? Let me know your thoughts and who you'd love to hear next!

The book was published by Trespasser in 2024 and you may be able to find a copy at your local photobook shop.

Thank you for your time!

If you liked this episode, you may also enjoy the conversation with Lisa Bukreyeva and her life in Ukraine during wartime.

Subscribe now

Until the next one,
Much love.
F

During a recent visit to a friend’s studio, he showed me the only photo he has of his great-grandparents. His family found it while collecting the last pieces of furniture before selling the house they had lived in for 51 years.

We reflected on how this small picture, now displayed at the top of his studio, is the only visual memory they have of those relatives. There’s no trace of what came before them. In a way, that picture feels like the first stone of the family, the place where it all started. Almost forgetting they were once children themselves, part of a much larger family tree that never had the pleasure of being photographed.

How curious.

If we’re lucky enough, we might have a dozen photos of our great-grandparents. In contrast, future generations will hold an astronomical amount of media about us, accessible without even stepping foot into the places we have lived in.

This thought sparked my curiosity.

Can we imagine how the world used to be and what home meant for people in the past, just by intensely looking at one picture?

That’s the beauty I see in found slides.

If you’re unfamiliar, found slides are fragments of memory.

Usually, you can find them in flea markets, discarded, or forgotten over time. These photographs are rarely seen in museums, yet their beauty lies in their fragility and mystery.

Sometimes, there’s a year or place written on top of it, offering a small window into its story. Other times, we’re left to imagine who these people were, what they dreamed of, and what their world looked like.

Back when I started collecting them for the first time, I didn’t know anything about slides. I was only attracted to the unknown surrounding certain pictures. Why did the photographers take them? Was it a vacation? A family retreat?

When I collect these slides, I think about their connection to Project Home. Each one is a tiny piece of a bigger puzzle, helping us understand the universal concept of home, what it meant in the past and how it continues to evolve.

Found Slides. Barcelona, 1962

I found my first slide in Barcelona. The package was labeled “Catalunya” and filled with landscape pictures of the mountains. But little by little, people’s figures began to emerge, each photo offering a glimpse into a story we’ll never fully know.

My request to you: Try to look at them with new eyes. Can you recreate their world?

Enjoy them below.

If by any chance you recognize someone, please let me know. I’ll be happy to send the original.

A Final Homework

Since that moment, I’ve started diving more into the meaning of artifacts and old memories. Until recently, when I encountered this piece by Hans-Peter Feldmann, thanks to Alec Soth.

I still haven’t found mine, but I wish you find yours soon.

Until the next one,
Much love.
F

I loved the packing metaphor.

And I love it because it quietly implies making choices.

Deciding what to leave and what to take along for the journey. This struck a chord with me because I do it every time I pack clothes, objects, and cameras for a trip. But I’ve rarely done it with my feelings, ideas, fears, or desires. Over the years, I’ve kept adding so much to my emotional luggage that, while my bags were light, my head felt like a boulder to carry.

That’s why I’m trying something new this year: Subtracting.

Removing old beliefs and habits, unnecessary ideas that anchor me to the past, and letting go of the desire to have more and more on my hands. I’m creating space for the seeds planted over the years to take root and thrive in freshly cleared ground.

I’m building the calendar for Project Home and I’m seriously excited for what’s coming in the next motnhs. I hope you are too.

Freezing Time

If there’s one period that best represents the concept of home, at least for me, it’s this one. It’s the rare occasion when I reconnect with old friends from school and share stories with my family. There’s a kind of magic in it.

Driven by some conversations, I started something deeply meaningful: taking portraits of my family members.

As I photographed my grandparents, I felt a profound sense of gratitude. Gratitude for them, for these moments, for the chance to freeze time and carry it with me into the future.

This is the magic of home. And this is what I aim to bring to you during our time together.

As we step into 2025, I invite you to reflect on your own luggage.

What will you take with you? What will you leave behind?

I’ll see you on this journey.

Until the next one,
Much love.
F

Camilla Marrese and Gabriele Chiapparini have explored the theme inside their new book Thinking Like an Island, a visual journey set on a remote Mediterranean island.

Named as one of the best books of 2024 by major publications like Lens Culture, their book resonated deeply with me, not just because of my love for the island itself, but also for the extraordinary storytelling power it holds.

🎧 Here’s your guide through the episode:

Timestamps

• 00:00 - 00:34 | Introduction

  • Presentation of the book

• 00:35 - 02:19 | Inspiration and Initial Journey

  • What inspired you to share the story of the island and its people through a book?

  • How many days did you spend on the island in total?

• 02:20 - 05:00 | Collaboration and Creative Process

  • How did you divide the work as collaborators?

  • Balancing photography, symbolism, objects, old letters, and antique photos.

• 05:01 - 11:50 | Community and Structure

  • Exploring the island’s winter community of 30-60 residents.

  • How the structure of the book mirrors the contrast between unity and fragmentation.

• 11:51 - 15:50 | Personal Takeaways on the Concept of Home

  • What do you personally take home from this book?

  • Did something inside you change after leaving the island?

• 15:51 - 18:50 | Key Stories and Moments

  • Is there a specific story, image, or moment that shaped the project deeply?

• 18:51 - 22:08 | Perspective and Closing Thoughts

  • What do you hope someone who’s never been to the island takes away from the book?

  • Final reflections from the creators on Thinking Like an Island.

    ---

You can grab a copy of the book at this link, and make sure to follow Camilla and Gabriele.

This is my final post of the year. I’d love to hear your thoughts on Project Home so far, what resonated most with you, and which pieces felt closest to your heart.

Wishing you all the best for the end of the year, and I’ll see you in January.

Much love,
F

Explore the most loved episodes during the holiday season: