Kate Hensher is a photographer in love with Italy and in this article she describes the roots of that love and what hidden treats the details of Italian imagery can offer a photographer
Having spent most of my childhood in my parents’ darkroom with a stop watch in hand, it was inevitable that even as the images appeared, a love of photography would develop in me. I had my first 35 mm camera at the age of eleven and have been taking photographs ever since. I continue to use traditional film, my favourite camera being a Canon AV-1 left to me by my grandfather, but I have recently introduced digital format into my portfolio.
With an Italian mother and a second home in Italy, I found a wealth of inspiration to fuel this passion in photography. I spent every summer in Montevarchi, a small town in the Valdarno between Florence and Arezzo, but even then, one that showed signs of expansion by the apartment blocks that were almost thrown up, they appeared so quickly. It was undiscovered and untouched, in the same way as our apartment in Via Roma was, as even over the ten years we owned it, it never managed to be fully furnished. Like most Italians, our living took place in the kitchen, mainly out of necessity as this was the only room that had chairs in it. Yet for all its minimalist decor, its often make-do, temporary furniture, that became more permanent with each passing year, I loved this flat. I loved this flat with its cracking plaster walls, and its wood wormed beams. I loved its heavy wooden doors with keys so large they should have unlocked a castle. I loved the wooden shutters that kept out the dark but also let in the first rays of the morning. And I loved the inspiration it gave me to photograph the splendour in everyday objects, so often ignored.
I started to look beyond and beneath the obvious beauty of the Italian landscape and architecture, to see the world from another perspective, a world where the ordinary becomes the extra ordinary. I didn’t need to photograph the views or the tourist attractions; these could be found anywhere, on a postcard, on a book, or even on a tea-towel. What I wanted to capture was the detail, so often overlooked, but on closer inspection, so evocative of the very sights, sounds and smells of Italy, to be then reviewed and savoured in the northern nights once the summer was over.
Today my fascination with the unseen interest in the everyday continues, as well as my attempt to refocus attention on objects which have become almost invisible by their very familiarity. So what makes me stop and see a picture when others would see a window or a wall? What do I see when others walk on, only noticing me? I see colour and texture, focusing in on detail, shape and pattern:
Like a bunch of grapes, Fiaschi have become almost symbols of Italy but who really stops to notice the sinuous shape and texture of the raffia?
Mirror 2 really does capture the unseen in the every day - a jeweller’s shop in a small out of the way piazza reflected in a mirror to assist drivers who are brave enough to take a car along the narrow, twisting streets of a small hill town in Le Marche.
In Florence, the Palazzo Vecchio just sneaked into view in the mirror of an otherwise unremarkable Vespa, one of many in a line up along the Lungarno. Wing Mirror, therefore, offers a different perspective of not only the building and how we view it but also somehow invests an interest in the bike by association.
Often over romanticised, Venice can distort people’s perception of reality. In Venice Reflection 4, it is the water that acts as the mirror reflecting this “distorted†view while at the same time symbolising all that is magical about the city.
Having stumbled upon a cycle race in Verona, I was more interested in the group of municipal policemen standing nearby. I was drawn to the detail on their boots and the repeating patterns: the ridges on the front echoed by the creases in the trousers, all “tied†together by the line of laces at the back of the boots. Unlike the red stripe of the carabinieri, the only identification for these policemen was a small unfussy paddle placed in the top, somehow at odds with the intricate lacing behind.
Conversely, in 6 Shoes, it is the simplicity of this “still life†arrangement of identical pairs of shoes in a designer shop window in Florence that makes it so eye-catching.
Sometimes, a shadow can be more attractive than its solid form. Shadow Lamp emphasises this by its seeming illumination of the shutters below. The silhouette competes for attention with the shutters, while the shadows either side form a frame for the scene. Each time I look at this photograph my attention shifts between the two.
This is also captured in Casa Mazzanti where the reversal of light and shade provides a more striking and prominent display of the name than the original.
By combining my love of Italy and my love of photography, my online gallery, Tapioca Fever was born. I now travel to Italy frequently, each time exploring a different city or different region but never without a camera in hand, always there to draw attention to the marvels of the material world that often pass us by, unnoticed.
All photographs are for sale. Please view the collection at www.tapiocafever.co.uk
