Elia Tofani Photography

darkroom lab — empoli · italia

elia tofani.

I wait for the right light.

$ while I wait, the machines keep grinding

down to the darkroom
01

darkroom

8 projects in the archive

Photo projects, developed slowly. The good things happen in the dark.

  1. A woman stands beside a shop window at night, her face lit by the pink glow of a neon sign, dark background with blurred lights.

    ET·018 Portraits 2024 Florence and around

    Low-light portraits

    the night lights better than people say

    see the print
  2. A cosplayer in full fantasy armor poses on the walls of Lucca, warm late-afternoon light, trees in the background.

    ET·019 Cosplay 2024 Lucca

    Lucca, the characters

    cosplay up close, no stage

    see the print
  3. Thailand travel photograph from the Christmas 2025 series

    ET·012 Travel 2025 thailand

    Thailand, 2025

    Street photography and side shoots from Thailand in 2025

    see the print
  4. an analog day

    ET·006 Travel Siena - Italy

    an analog day

    A slow travel note in a dark analog mood.

    see the print
  5. Luis Vuitton

    ET·001 Travel 2024 milano, italia

    a trip in milan

    Random shots in Milan

    see the print
A woman stands beside a shop window at night, her face lit by the pink glow of a neon sign, dark background with blurred lights. 01A A man sits alone at an outdoor table outside a shuttered cafe, lit from above by a streetlight, empty street around him. 02A A girl in profile at a bus stop at night, her face lit blue by the glow of the departures screen. 03A Two people in silhouette under a dark arcade, backlit by the headlights of a passing car. 04A Self-portrait reflected in the window of a closed shop, a figure with a camera barely readable among the reflected signs. 05A A cosplayer in full fantasy armor poses on the walls of Lucca, warm late-afternoon light, trees in the background. 06A Close-up of a cosplayer with stage makeup for an anime character, blue wig, looking into the lens, neutral shaded background. 07A A group of cosplayers laughing together in a crowded street, colorful costumes, an unposed moment. 08A Close detail of a cosplayer's gloved hands gripping a prop sword, raking light showing the craft of the hilt. 09A A cosplayer in a dark cloak at the end of an empty Lucca alley, faint haze backlit, cobblestones in the foreground. 10A A child stares open-mouthed at a cosplayer in a superhero costume crouching down toward him, blurred crowd around them. 11A Thailand travel photograph from the Christmas 2025 series 12A Vertical Thailand street photograph from Christmas 2025 13A Vertical travel frame from Thailand at Christmas 14A Thailand street photography frame from the holiday archive 15A Vertical Thailand photograph from a Christmas travel series 16A
contact sheets from the archive — hover to develop them open the full archive
02

the lab log

machines running

What happens while the prints dry: models running locally, salvaged hardware, experiments that work at two in the morning.

  1. 2026-06-12 [ai] Qwen and the mini-pc: a month tagging photos at night A local LLM on a cast-off office mini-pc writes the alt text for my archive while I sleep. One month in: better than I expected, worse than I tell people.
  2. 2026-06-11 [ai] Qwen e il mini-pc: un mese a etichettare foto di notte Un LLM locale su un mini-pc da ufficio dismesso scrive gli alt text del mio archivio mentre dormo. Bilancio dopo un mese: meglio del previsto, peggio di quanto racconto in giro.
  3. 2026-06-12 [electronics] A darkroom timer in 2026 A decent darkroom timer costs thirty euros. Building one costs forty and three weekends. The choice was obvious.
open the log

03 ▸ the light is on

There's always something developing.

a portrait, a print, a question about the lab — write me.

write me