The Italians
Italians seem to live their days on the streets of their towns and cities far more than their Australian counterparts do. They play, kiss, walk their dogs and even catch up on a little sleep in their parks and piazzas. The entire population of a town turns up to watch and celebrate a local procession. The old men gather daily and almost everyone appears for the ritual evening passeggiata. The photographs in this collection are mainly of Italians in these public and sometimes private domains.
Taken during two visits to Italy in 2001 and 2002, they are mainly of the south of Italy: Calabria and Sicily. These are places where life is comparatively slower and closer to the land, regions the northerners sometimes rather coolly describe as more part of Africa than Italy.