After having spent many years on the high plateaus of Taos New Mexico, at an altitude of 2,200 meters, upon my return to Europe I wanted to visit and even live in wild, isolated spots. For years I had kept a photo I had found somewhere I don’t remember, of the small port of the Levanzo island, close to Trapani in Sicily. I really wanted to go there with Françoise, my wife. Thanks to the help of Jean Digne of the Naples French Cultural Center, we moved to Stromboli with our little Joaquim in the fall of 1987 for our first residence. Then another one followed in 1988 on the Lipari island, in Cannetto. From there, we were able to visit all the Aeolian Islands, one at a time, for two months, and finally we took a boat back to Naples in December, under the snow! One at a time, I visited ALL the small Italian islands, climbing to all their summits, with the intention of producing a gigantic fresco of all these sites, from the Tremiti islands to the others such as Giglio, Ventotene or Marettimo in fact all of them. Often during the high seas with no ship on the horizon… My two favorite islands are the smallest ones, Alicudi and Levanzo.
Slowly, with the help of my old Nikkormat and its 50mm lens, I started collecting the photos. At the beginning, Digne suggested that I should do a small book. We were thinking about a title. One day, staying with friends of Mimmo D’Oria in Bari, the wife of the architect Toto Radichio found a lovely expression: «Dopo l’estate», after the summer… That was it ! These are simple and true photographs, a real, eternal Italy, a sort of tribute to Visconti’s black and white film «The Earth Trembles»… a follow-up to the harshness of the American West, and my stay in the Port Cros island of my youth, when I caught the virus of small islands!
This is a passion, and a meaning given to photography that matches what is remote, past.
Bernard Plossu
FESTIVAL
Photomed 2014
Until June 15th, 2014
83110 Sanary-sur-Mer
France
http://www.festivalphotomed.com
