Puglia Famiglia

August 2024. Puglia. Nine days with family, between Lecce, Otranto and the Adriatic coast. I had a roll of CineStill 400D in the Rollei 35 and a specific plan: do something with southern light, using a film made for cinema. The Purple Noon aesthetic was the starting point.

CineStill 400D is a cinema film repurposed in a 35mm roll. It's made for artificial lights, projectors, lit sets. I knew, before leaving, that under a noon sun in Otranto it would do something else. It saturates blues. It holds the whites of masserie without burning them. Skin tones go warm without turning orange. Purple Noon, Alain Delon on a boat, the Mediterranean too blue: that was the image in my mind before I even loaded the film.

The Vespa in the first image belongs to no one in our group. It was parked against a white village wall, facing the sea, as if it had been waiting for its owner since morning. I waited for no one to pass in front. Problema della Benzina is a petrol station on the road between Lecce and Gallipoli: an unplanned stop, perfect light on functional architecture. The best travel images are the ones you weren't looking for.

The series built itself around a few recurring figures: girls in motion (Le Due Sorelle, Il Salto), girls waiting (L'Attesa, L'Ombrello), and objects that remain when people have gone (the Vespa, the petrol station). It's a diverted family album. The subjects are known. There is no staging. What remains is the light.