In Milan I have been many things: occasional visitor; commuter worker; hosted by friends; protagonist in spite of myself of exhausting trade fair tours-de-force; enterprising participant in conferences and seminars; over the years a permanent student for professional development.

I have been there many times, in a hurry, without ever stopping to observe it. Indeed, suffering its incomprehensible and eternal chaos. Sighing with relief every time, in the evening, having passed the intricate beehive of the Central Station, I sank into the seat of the first train towards home.

Then retirement gave me another Milan. Then, with the camera slung over my shoulder, I retraced the same well-known places, reappearing in a new light. Then I looked for places that I had never imagined existed, separated from the great metropolis.

Proceeding slowly, to look, observe, photograph. The exact opposite of what happened to me in the frenetic episodes of the other life.
As happens to me when I experience and photograph a place, in this case too it was the innumerable extras of that eternal theatre of the street that occupied my photographic imagination: the workers of the new professions, the inevitable tourists of the designer label, the Milanese of the new multi-ethnic gentrification.

A young side, undoubtedly modern… and an ancient one. Like the one that appeared to me, unexpected with amazement, the day I set foot on the Naviglio Grande towpath at the Engraving Centre. But this is the next page.