Photo of the Month: January 2023

This photo has many of the elements that I think a great picture must have. The strong lights, the movement, the imperfection of the lens, bring it to life.

But it also has a great sense of immediacy and style. The subject brings in a sudden narrative, of which I was not completely conscious when I shot it last Sunday 8 January on the west pier in Dún Laoghaire.

I’m an Italian painter and illustrator based in Dublin and I also do “great” street photography.

Photography forces you to look very hard and continuously at people and places and this is very useful for the work of a painter. Street photography is also about capturing a moment, the moment your eyes meet with the people you are going to “shoot”. It is very fast and it’s beautiful when the emotion makes the picture come to life.

If you’d like to enter our Photo of the Month contest you can find the guidelines here. Entries for February’s contest are open from now until the end of the day Monday 6 February.