When Davide called me to offer me to work with Puteoli Sacra, I did not have even a moment of hesitation: I could not hold back in front of a project for the artistic rediscovery of one of the places with the greatest potential that the province of Naples can give.
I made the photographic set of the entire complex of the Rione Terra, with the specific mission of enhancing the contrast between ancient and modern, telling the story of a retraining of a depopulated and abandoned place since the 1980s.
The tools I use are those more congenial to my kind of photography: wide angle and Fujifilm. In total I have delivered more than 50 photographs in a single day of work, with inspection and photographs. On the other hand, the interior photography is one of my passions.
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Puteoli Sacra. The redevelopment of the Duomo
The overwhelming emotion in entering the cathedral is described in a single image: first the darkness, then the gap between the seventeenth-century cathedral and the ancient one, merged as only Campania can do. On the square sides of Artemisia Gentileschi mixed with pre-Christian finds and the Roman columns of the temple.
There very difficult condition of the light, due to the contrast between the outside and the inside, have been rendered with the HDR technique well managed with mine Fujifilm X-T3. In this way I made the best of it very strong clash between two eras in the Cathedral of the Rione Terra.
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Walking in the newly restored sacristy, we came across an extraordinary vision: a frescoed wall with the faces of all the men who administered the church, as well as that of the founder of the same. "This place, until 15 years ago, was home to homeless people and drug addicts. The walls were so damaged that you couldn't even see what was underneath“, The guide explains to me.
I am immediately struck by the presence of the face of San Gennaro and it is precisely this aspect that I try to enhance in photography, as if the sacred had returned to its proper place. In this case the recovery is carried out with a fixed 16mm f / 1.4, also thanks to the very poor lighting of the place.
The contrast between ancient and modern
There human dimension is fundamental in the narration of a place. For this reason, speaking with Davide, we decided to place it within the place that he has decided to narrate on social networks, just to give a sense of human presence in the story. And there it was, tiny in front of the gigantic tonnage of art, made of Roman columns mixed with seventeenth-century chapels. A unicum that can only be found in the Rione Terra.
The photograph, distributed on Davide D'Errico's social channels and on Puteoli Sacra, has had more than 50,000 reactions.
The exterior of the Rione Terra
Last but not least the exteriors. The narration of a place must also be done in the streets that have experienced stories, in this case real dramas and rebirths.
The Rione Terra, with its narrow spaces, it is not an easy subject to photograph. At least until I saw the street with the viewpoint: his contrast between the warm colors of the buildings and the cold ones of the sky and the sea: a break between the human and nature on a still empty street. This photograph was the cover of the Puteoli Sacra initiative.
The Rione Terra - I am sure - will be reborn thanks to the ambitious and extraordinary project of the Diocese of Pozzuoli and with the creativity and skill of Maria Prisco and Davide D'Errico. And I'll be there, with my camera, for tell about their success.
Now do we want to tell your story?
-Federico Quagliuolo
