‘You have to go to Naples’
This is what every body who saw or heard about my on-going photography project ‘Intimacy Under the Wires‘ kept telling me.
So I did.
I did go to Naples. And it didn’t disappoint. On the contrary. It was a heavenly place for my shoot and a tremendous landmark for my project.
Walking in the narrow streets under the crumbling balconies of old colorful buildings, keeping my head up and my camera always ‘on’, was an amazing visual experience. I couldn’t keep my head down, not for a minute, not to miss any shooting opportunity but to keep following the cloth- lines as they ran from one balcony to another.
I booked a private tour guide in advance, to make sure I visit the tiniest streets and the more dangerous areas so I could be free to shoot Laundry. Marina, who was born and raised in Naples and is very proud to be called a native Neapolitan, took me to Via Forcella in the Forcella district, where the Camorra (Naples’ Mafia) clans rule. And so, a sense of urgency and danger accompanied my shooting experience. (I loved it!)
When we got to the entrance of Via Forcella, Marina stopped and said; ‘This is where GOD is’. She looked at me to make sure I understood what she meant and continued: ‘I find GOD in human beings. and this is where we hang our clothes…This is where the hanging clothes and the hanging stories of the Neapolitans exist’
She urged me to be quick with my shoot (‘because it is not a safe place’, she said) and I took a deep breath to overcome of my sense of apprehension and got my camera ready.
This is just a hint of what I have found.
