Photographing Puglia on the move
Road side
Travelling through Puglia in southern Italy brought about a distinct change in my photography. The schedule of our visit included car trips and it seemed unfair to request frequent photography stops from my partner so I began to ‘drive-by-shoot’ when on the move.The random compositions and often blurred results jolted me out of my default view of what might make a good photograph.I was also using a new camera that was lighter than my usual and allowed a more flexible approach.Un-familiarity with the controls added to the fun.
Train travel
I adopted the same approach on a train from Monopoli to Lecce. Good coffee in the station cafe fuelled some loose phone photography and my excitement grew with the hit and miss compositions of railway architecture and amenities.I switched to my new Fuji XT2 as kilometres of olive groves, pylons, poly tunnels, odd industrial sites and disused farm buildings flashed past. Unlikely outdoor subject matter, all viewed from a higher vantage point in a mobile interior that projected reflections out to the exterior. It felt a very different experience to that of capturing say Italy’s renowned tourist attractions using a static street level approach.
Rural drives #1 and #2
These photographs were taken when we were driving through a narrow stretch of flat, fertile land adjoining the coast in northern Puglia. This area, seemingly untouched by tourism centred around growing produce on small scale strips of land. I was interested in the way farmers had fashioned their plots and buildings with individual touches. Utility structures and homes were sometimes embellished with decorative colour, fancy brickwork and ornamented gateways. The tools and mundane equipment for working of crops were often left exposed, ordinary and everyday items but with much to catch the eye. I was enjoying the off kilter compositions of this subject matter, the accidental over exposing, the occasional rapid sequencing of images (up to 14 frames a second) and the flat, even light of the day. The effect of this was to underline the workaday feel of the place, dramatic sunlight would have added too much distraction.
Months on I see these Puglia photographs working best when shown grouped together in a particular sequence. There are no ‘killer’ standalone shots but viewed together a more cinematic and narrative quality emerges. The more intense images are balanced by quieter ones in the way that differing passages in a book or film have relationships that add to a bigger picture. I hope you enjoy these visual stories.