Asfalto e Pietre — Landscapes
These images are part of a longer journey, born from a project called "Asfalto e Pietre" — Asphalt and Stone. Two ways of telling the same story: the relationship between matter and time, between what stays and what passes. They are fragments collected along the road — between mountains, passes and places where the light changes faster than the air — and they try to hold the moment when the world, just for an instant, stops and breathes. Each photograph belongs to a real journey. It can continue travelling, if you want to take it with you.
Tofana di Rozes
At dawn, the Tofana di Rozes ignites like a flame that refuses the cold. The air cuts through you, the shadows dissolve slowly, and warm light runs across the rock, reaches the summit and disappears behind the clouds. This is a mountain that doesn't let itself be seen easily — but when it does, it seems to be saying something larger than itself.
Piz Boè
The clouds above Piz Boè don't hold still for a second. The mountain appears, disappears, reappears different — darker, then lit, then swallowed by grey again. I waited for it to make up its mind. Eventually I understood that it never does. That's the point.
Corno Piccolo
The Gran Sasso doesn't do favours. Corno Piccolo emerges from the grey like something that doesn't ask permission — the light finds it for one sharp instant, then it's gone. I waited. It's always like this: the mountain decides when to show itself, and you stand there with the camera hoping you're ready.
Tofana di Mezzo
Tofana di Mezzo and Tofana di Rozes look alike and don't. One burns, the other absorbs. That day the haze was low and the sun came in sideways — it wasn't illuminating, it was cutting. I released the shutter before I understood what I was looking at. That's usually when it comes out best.
Seceda Ridgeline
The Seceda is the most photographed place in the Dolomites and probably the hardest to photograph honestly. Everyone has that shot. I waited for the wind — when it comes, the grass moves and the ridgeline stops looking like a postcard and becomes a living thing again. It's a matter of ten seconds, maybe less.
Monte Cristallo
There's a minute, maybe less, when Monte Cristallo burns. The clouds light up from below, the slope shifts from shadow to copper, and then it's over. I've learned not to watch the sunset — to watch the mountain during the sunset. That's where something happens that the sky alone doesn't know how to do.
Piedra de l'Aguila
South of San Martín de los Andes, the Río Aluminé moves slowly between granite walls that hold the light. The water, the wind and the stone seem to move together, in the same rhythm. In Patagonia everything is larger, but what stays with you is the silence it all happens in.
Corno Grande
Winter on the Gran Sasso. Clouds move into the walls of Corno Grande and the wind tears them away — continuously, without pause, as if the mountain were burning cold. The white takes away the sounds. I stayed until my hands stopped working properly. It was worth it.
Monte Limbara
In the north of Sardinia, among rocks worn smooth by the wind, the sky opens and the Milky Way draws itself above the peaks. A clear night, no noise, and the light of the stars seems enough to illuminate the stone. Photographing in moments like this feels close to gratitude.
Passo Giau
At dawn, the refuge at Passo Giau wakes slowly, while Monte Ra Gusela lets the first light reach it. The air is still, almost suspended, and everything seems to begin again: shadows pull back, the sky opens, the mountain takes on colour. One of those moments when the day truly starts, and silence is worth more than anything you could say.
"The Tofana di Rozes is massive and we understand each other. She's always there, breaking the clouds first, like the prow of a ship cutting through waves, splitting currents, like an icebreaker. Something epic and desperate. I've photographed her a thousand times the way you do with a lover — beautiful, who is a storm even when she sleeps between warm, damp sheets."
All works from this series are on permanent display in the emergency waiting room of Policlinico Gemelli, Rome.
The photographs in this series are available as numbered and signed fine art prints, produced on Hahnemühle paper in limited editions.
For inquiries: francesco@francescodibene.com
Photographs are made to last — but also to travel. Sometimes the right place is simply another wall, another light, another gaze.