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Photography and words by Paolo Ricca
PEOPLE OF THE LAND
The Earth's sweat
White streets, covered with stones and gravel, shabby, rusty and half-open gates, right there, alongside the most chaotic arteries of the capital, seem to announce an unexpected guest. The infinite perspective of the orchards, the splendor of the newly turned clods in the fields, the clock that slows down and the time that suddenly seems to turn back. So, in the midst of the frenetic paths of globalization, start my journey through the unexpected and extraordinary discovery of a territory that is always present and close, a precious past that has never left me after all. By bringing the lens closer to the people who live the earth and respect it deeply, I immerse myself in the memory of the weekends spent in contact with it when, on a small piece of land owned by my grandfather, I lived intense and lively moments of my childhood.
Words by Paolo Ricca
Today, like yesterday, in the hardness of the fields I find marked faces and small wrinkles, passion and sacrifices full of light. Indelible moments spent in contact with the earth, the anecdotes told by my grandparents and what then seemed to me like an incomprehensible melancholy at the end of each weekend. The bitter cold, the sun that burns, the humidity that sticks to clothes and penetrates inside, to the bone. The back is always bent, a bow and then another, once again, a dance that does not allow interruptions or complaints. Gestures and customs of distant days, yet so close to my tomorrow. Today I relive stories of humility and determination, wisdom in my hands and a great respect for the land, a value that deserves respect, which at times disappoints and gives tears of fatigue, but which then always returns to smile to give immense satisfaction.
The sweat of the earth, all my work revolves around admiration for this metaphor. No filter, only natural light and the poetry of primary colors, to frame the close-up portrait of a peripheral and urban fabric that is increasingly current and intense, sometimes even rough, but for this reason even more authentic. Men and women, the human being, guardian of an inestimable value, the dignity of the soul that resists and does not bend to the easy in the face of the rhythm of the seasons, the confirmation of a today that will surely know how to cultivate the roots of its future.
The sweat of the earth, all my work revolves around admiration for this metaphor. No filter, only natural light and the poetry of primary colors, to frame the close-up portrait of a peripheral and urban fabric that is increasingly current and intense, sometimes even rough, but for this reason even more authentic. Men and women, the human being, guardian of an inestimable value, the dignity of the soul that resists and does not bend to the easy in the face of the rhythm of the seasons, the confirmation of a today that will surely know how to cultivate the roots of its future.
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A tribute to those who work the land, This work is a recognition to deep personal and collective roots, a journey through childhood memories.