This autumn my wife and me spent some days in Turin, or Torino as the Italians say. A truly great city that surpassed my expectations. To be honest, I assumed Turin to be a grey industrial city ... but instead we found a large historic centre with tons of interesting sites to visit. Did you know that Turin was Italy's first official capital? I didn't!
This photo shows the window of the famous
Caffè Al Bicerin, a coffee shop that openend in 1763 and where the famous Italian coffee was invented. In Turin you can find many of these places that seemed to have stood the test of time. Maybe Turin is a city of nostalgia. Let's find out :)
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| Caffè Al Bicerin, Turin (Italy) - Pentax-A 50mm F1.4 |
Turin is the city of Fiat and Italy's capital of the automotive industry. Unfortunately I wasn't able to catch any classic Italian car in the streets... One night I spotted this vintage Volkswagen Beetle. I love this picture as it could have been taken many years ago.
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| Volkswagen Beetle, Turin (Italy), Pentax-A 50mm F1.4 |
As in any Italian street, you can spot scooters or Vespas all over the place. This man was parking his specimen after doing some groceries or so. I like this photo a lot: the classic vespa is in perfect condition, the background is typically urban and the guy adds some dynamics.
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| Man with Vespa, Turin (Italy) - Pentax-A 50mm F1.4 |
Turin used to be Italy's capital and was home to the Italian king. Statues will remind you of this in every piazza in town. The one below shows King
Victor Emmanuel II on his horse. I usually don't like shots of statues, but this one seemed quite powerful. This actually is a full color-shot; the sky was pitch black and the statue is constructed of black vs white materials. I deliberately left a fragment of the building in the bottom-right corner. Why? Cover it with your hand and look how the statue looks smaller now.
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| Statue of King Victor Emmanuell II, Turin (Italy) |
Apparently Turin hosts one of the world's finest
Egyptian museums. It's very much recommended to visit and contains some really impressive and large objects. Nevertheless, this little buste caught my attention. It's about 3,000 years old and depicts an unknown lady. It intrigues me because her face got carved out and the shadows re-reated two eyes. Having a face or not, she's still looking at you. From a technical point of view I don't like this photo very much. Inside the museum there was little light and I had to shoot with high ISO (1600) and a low F-stop (2). The picture needs more dept of field.
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| Statue in Museo Egizio, Turin (Italy) - Pentax-A 50mm F1.4 |
And finally a view on the city itself! The pointy building on the left is the
Mole Antonelliana, constructed in 1863 - 1889 and once the tallest building in the world. The piazza on the foreground is
Piazza Vittorio Veneto. It's a great place to hang it in the evening with some good Italian appetisers. Did you spot the old yellow tram?
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| Mole Antonelliana, Turin (Italy), Pentax-A 50mm F1.4 |
Torino is a true historic place and it's easy to discover great photo locations. With this series I hoped to share a bit of the vintage-vibe the city has going on. Torino, I'll be back!
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