By Camilla Sarra.

Because some journeys begin the moment you stop to look — and sometimes, what you discover changes the way you see. Between Ponte Vecchio and Ponte Santa Trinita, in one of Florence’s most evocative corners, the San Jacopo Show Art Gallery presents a compelling double exhibition: Cacciatore d’Immagini (1995–2025) by Leo Baglioni and “Reflections on an Odyssey” by James Cacciatore.

Until November 1, 2025, the gallery becomes a crossroads of vision, craftsmanship, and dialogue — a place where two artists from different worlds, one Florentine and one Texan, meet through photography as a shared language. Their works open a conversation between generations and sensibilities, between European tradition and American introspection, between the tangible and the transcendent.

More than a photographic exhibition, this is a dual exploration of light, time, and truth — two parallel odysseys that converge in Florence’s golden reflection. This is a mirrored exploration: Baglioni retraces thirty years of artistic pursuit through light, contrast, and reflection, while Cacciatore presents his own visual journey, an odyssey across continents, time, and memory. Both are hunters of images, seekers of authenticity in an increasingly fleeting world.

Leo Baglioni’s Florence: Poetry in Every Image

Leo Baglioni, born in Florence in 1976, is a painter, photographer, scenographer, interior designer, and gallerist. A graduate of the Florence Academy of Fine Arts, he lives and works in his native city, where he directs the San Jacopo Show Art Gallery. His works appear in numerous private collections across the world.

With Cacciatore d’Immagini (1995–2025), Baglioni presents more than fifty photographs — both analog and digital — tracing three decades of artistic evolution. Inspired by a story by Charles Simic, the title evokes the figure of the “image hunter”: a restless observer who captures fragments of life and fleeting glimpses of the metaphysical hidden within the ordinary.

His work reveals a refined sensitivity to light, form, and silence. Each photograph stands as an autonomous world, where everyday life becomes a poetic reflection. Through this exhibition, Baglioni opens his vision to dialogue with that of James Cacciatore, whose contemporary eye and disciplined approach mirror the same devotion to truth, craftsmanship, and perception.

James Cacciatore’s Odyssey: From Florence to Texas

In Reflections on an Odyssey, American photographer James Cacciatore presents 27 framed works and about 40 additional prints, created using Silver Gelatin, C-Type on Fujiflex Crystal Archive Paper, and Giclée on Arches Aquarelle — all fully archival and meticulously hand-printed.

Cacciatore’s photographic world unfolds like a visual diary, spanning from the Mediterranean to the open plains of America. His collections — Life Is Meals, Reflections, and Memoirs (Of Things Past) — reveal a sensibility shaped by intimacy, travel, and time. From long lunches at Villa d’Este to quiet streets in Noto, from twilight scenes along the Arno to the wild expanse of Texas, each image captures the stillness between moments — the space where memory and emotion converge.

His story began unexpectedly when, on his way to study art in Italy, his grandfather gifted him a vintage film camera once used in post–World War II Germany. That single gesture became the catalyst for a lifelong pursuit of the image — and of the truth within it.

He later trained in Florence under master printer Romeo Di Loreto, one of Italy’s last great darkroom technicians, while apprenticing with a local tailor by day. This dual education — divided between visual craft and artisanal discipline — sharpened his sensitivity to texture, patience, and light.

“My approach to photography is rooted in old-world craftsmanship and precision,” Cacciatore explains. “It’s about patience, honesty, and the courage to wait for what’s real.” His images — from Sailor’s Sam’s to Reflexioni sull’Arno, from The Wild One (Texas) to Parallel Voyage (Firenze) — are spontaneous yet deliberate. “There are no filters, no tricks,” he adds. “Only intention, observation, and the will to see what others overlook.”

Cacciatore’s Reflections on an Odyssey thus becomes both a personal and universal journey — a meditation on distance, memory, and the persistence of beauty in the quiet corners of life.

When Florence Becomes a Bridge Between Two Visions

Together, Baglioni and Cacciatore transform Il Cacciatore di Immagini into a dialogue on perception and presence. Between Ponte Vecchio and Ponte Santa Trinita, where Florence’s light glides across the Arno, their works speak the same quiet language — one of patience, craftsmanship, and reverence for the act of seeing.

Baglioni’s painterly precision meets Cacciatore’s cinematic sensitivity. His series Life Is Meals celebrates human ritual and connection; Reflections captures movement as a form of meditation; and Memoirs (Of Things Past) transforms nostalgia into vision. These same elements — the intimacy of gesture, the geometry of light, the quiet dignity of time — are mirrored in Baglioni’s thirty-year exploration of the photographic act.

Both artists remind us that photography is not merely a way to record the world, but a way to understand it. Their works invite the viewer to slow down, to look again, and to rediscover the extraordinary within the ordinary. In their union, Cacciatore d’Immagini (1995–2025) and Reflections on an Odyssey reveal that beauty often hides in what we overlook — that art begins in attention — and that even in places we do not yet know, something waits quietly to be seen, remembered, and felt.

Untill November 1st, Borgo San Jacopo 66Red, Florence