Not quite the same shot

Ponte Italia is one of those places you don’t really choose. It chooses you.

Every day, coming or going, the same thing happens. I slow down. Sometimes I stop. My eyes drift past the railing and settle on the Parma river below.

2026-04-21

And every single time, the thought comes: I've already shot this.

Then I look up. And I realize it's never quite the same.

It was 7:41 on a random Tuesday evening in April. That in-between hour when the day is winding down but hasn't fully committed to it yet. The sky still blue, clouds taking up most of the frame. The light was past afternoon but not yet golden hour — somewhere in the middle, and it wasn't going to last.

I've lost count of how many times I've shot from this spot. Same framing, same bridge, same water that sometimes runs high and sometimes almost disappears. The seasons change, the trees change, the water changes. But mostly, the light changes.

So does it matter? Does it make sense to keep coming back to the same place and shooting, essentially, the same photograph?

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man." (attributed to Heraclitus)

My gut says no. It's repetition. Habit. Maybe even a way of avoiding something new. But photography, at least the way I experience it, has never been that straightforward.

Because when I stop there — even for just a few seconds — I'm not chasing something new. I'm trying to hold onto that exact moment. And that moment, by definition, will never come again.

Monotony is always right there, lurking. It hides in the automatic gesture, in not really looking. But it doesn't take much to break it: a different cloud, a sudden shift in light, a reflection that wasn't there the day before. Or simply — you're not the same person you were.

Maybe that's the whole point. The place stays the same. We don't.

Those photos, lined up together — so similar on the surface — start telling a story that goes beyond the subject. It's no longer just the bridge or the river. It's a sequence of returns, of passings-through, of small moments stolen from routine. An accidental diary, written in light.

I don't know if that's creativity or just stubbornness. Probably both.

All I know is that this time, too, I didn't do anything to stop myself. I looked, hesitated for a second.

And then I shot.