I was shooting a lot in Paris. I was doing a lot of commercial photography. I was really
living like a typical fashion photographer, buying stupid things and living a stupid life. Then I was
already doing a personal project on adolescence in Copenhagen and in Naples and I started to go
back to Naples many times because I was really attracted by the place and by the ARIA Specialist
Campia where I was started shooting and the more I knew Naples, the more I knew especially the
first time I met Giovanni Durante, the father of Annalisa. When he told me the whole story with
all the details of the murder, coming back to my normal life, what was normal to me at least,
was kind of crazy because once you talk with the father of a girl killed at 14 and the next day
you do a lingerie casting in Paris with 300 girls naked and it was too much for me. So I
quit my agency in Paris and I started to go back to Naples all the time with a few money
left and I quit fashion for a couple of years doing only one client basically that used to pay
well and it was really difficult to come back to fashion. Now I'm doing again but I'm using as a
crowdfunding money to finance my personal project. It depends from family to family but especially
in the area of the Red Sail, La Velarosa, that was quite difficult the first time and we made it
in India. I had a help of a friend and especially for the dangerous area but the most difficult part
is to let them understand that you're not using them, you don't want to sell the scoop of a drug
addict to any newspaper in that case and that you're doing your work, you're doing your long-term
project, it was an exhibition in my head in the start and they really get that. Then they let you
in their apartment, they cook pizza for you and you will never go out because they're very nice
and welcoming. After you pass the first, I'll kill you if you don't put down the camera part let's
say. There's a program in Italy very bad on Canale Cinque which is something like Telecinque here
which is about men and women. Yeah okay very fake all written by others and once a mother asked to
the person that was with me to take the kid, her son, to soccer school and then back because she
has to watch that program and she's like 35 with the most stupid program you ever know. I learned
actually almost to love that program after I was in Naples for so many times because I was
watching with them and they teach me how it works but it was very strange to see that the
mothers were asking me sometimes to make her famous, you know make my daughter famous, take her out
of this place and try to explain them that it's not really that you do, you know that if you're
beautiful or if you're nice girl, you go into television, you become famous, you marry a soccer
player, it doesn't solve your life. So try to let them read in these ways was the most difficult
part to me and I think that it's the biggest issue there, it comes from Italian television. It
might be big to say that but watching so much television from those families they just miss
the real life which they have around a lot but it might be a way to escape but those kids they
look at television a lot, they go out and they see needles on the floor, they see drug addicts,
they see drug dealing in front of their door and it's kind of easy that they will they dream
to escape to a better place or to go into television and become famous but that's you know
there's this more passage that if you're in television you know it's not that if I have three
cameras here and one iPad I'm famous or if I go online wherever I'm famous then to let them get
this is very difficult so for them having you with a camera is like wow I'm gonna become famous so
the first step was to tell them no it's an exhibition it's gonna be the first one was in
Copenhagen actually and so then we realized that you're not making them famous everything becomes
more normal and more easier for me to do but yeah the main issue might be that the families
themselves sometimes and the fact that there's no culture there the government is totally absent
in the territory and so the mafia rules basically it's not that they win, they are actually 11,
8 or up to 14 and it's called Neomelodic Singer Cantantino Melodico their top of the career is
around 11 or 12 and at 14 they are already descending they are at the bottom and depressed
many times but they gain a lot of money because they sing it during the weekends 12 weddings per
day Saturdays and Sundays in this way they can be paid up to 1,000 each 15 minutes they sing
which makes 24,000 per weekend which makes a lot of money or 500 whatever depends from the
popularity of the girl but for them it's really business so the girl can be actually even bothered
by being famous sometimes the smartest one Sabrina for instance she really loves to sing so what
moved me was the fact that she loved to sing so much that she doesn't care if she has to send
a message from Camara to a clan from a clan or she has to sing a song that she love or she has
to go on TV or she does a four television in one afternoon when I was there with her and she does
it like this and she's 11 and she just love to sing so you really see the passion there you know
the grandfather was saying Sabrina okay this program you're gonna sing song number 7 and 32
because she knows by heart and she was saying no come on 32 no I want to sing 37 this time she
really loves to sing so that was the best part of it that's a long story but the first time I
wanted to picture the objects of the evidence of the murder the procura da república which
is a structure which is over the police told me that it's not possible you need to be a police
officer to shoot those objects but if you want you can take pictures of our pictures of the
objects so to me was like a depressing day because you know when you're a photographer and you
really want something if you don't have it you get depressed basically so when they give me the
Moleskine of the picture they just give me on table and then they give me for free some prints
they give me as a gift some print that they took and they're really forensic police in Italy they're
really I think everywhere but they're really passionate about photography they know everything
about these digital things and they know and they have a roll reflex in some cabinet window
so we start really to get along together pretty well and they give me this so I take picture
of all the Moleskine like this without not even thinking about it and when I came back to Paris
I thought that this can can be the envelope of everything so I can put my portraits in the middle
of this and it was definitely the format itself the A4 which is a format that I hate for a book
it's horrible it was a designer idea so the designer Sibin and Kuiper had the idea wonderful to not
keep a girl picture on the cover which is something usually every photographer wants you know a picture
and we had a long discussion about whether a good book has to have a picture on the cover
or just text he said that the best book has text and the worst has picture but then I think about
Los Alamos from Aglestone there has a wonderful picture on the cover so we started a long fight
basically for months about this anyone about this and it was right in the end so because in the end
is a picture on the cover but it's not a person so it was just the name my name and the title and I
think there was a lucky a lucky idea a lucky choice to be socially aware of what is happening
there you have to go there so and nobody wants to go there so I try to document what I see
and what I see to me is beautiful apart from the tragedy in it so as long as I can you know bring
this beauty around the world to me is that it's quite enough but I don't know if it's a social
something the responsibility of that I don't take any charge for that I did pictures
documentary photographers to be honest just to be honest with themselves and to go somewhere to
really feel the need to tell a story and to understand what story is crucial to tell and
and go for it and no matter what so that's it just don't show off don't be an hero don't be anything
like that but just as long as you're honest as long as you go home and you sleep at night and you
know that you did something that it was honest to the person you picture and to the story you're
telling that's the most simple advice I can give all the rest is just technical matters you learn
in today's and it's a big deal but yeah I'll see this
