Man with a Vision
When you spend time in a wonderful place like Capri, you meet many interesting people. Among them is one of the island’s most renowned photographers, Umberto D’ Aniello.
I was given his contact by a friend, who knowing far too well my passion for photography, thought I’d appreciate his work. Without hesitation I sent him an e-mail from Naples last month. His response was kind and polite–offering himself with anything I’d need upon my arrival to Capri.
A few days later, we made plans to meet at a small cafe called the “Michelangelo” at Annacapri (another town on a higher hill in the island above the city of Capri). “E bello vedrai!” (It’s pretty, you’ll see), he reassured me.
On my way through the Piazzetta (consciously submitting myself to the judgment of regular customers of the four open-air bars where a cosmopolitan and intransigent crowd gathers and demands only the best), I decide for a change and take a small bus to Annacapri.
The views there are absolutely stunning. The color spectrum of the sunset in the sky ranges from a bright pink to a deep orange discretely allowing at the horizon a sight of the Sorrento peninsula over the port of Marina Grande. I am intrigued,I would like to know how the man I am going to meet soon, catches the secrets of the light behaving as I see it, in this island known to be the most beautiful in the world.
I walk a few steps with a small digital Casio camera in the direction of the Cafe Michelangelo. I am a little early. I took some time to capture the difference of energy between the historical center of this small town and the Capri Piazzetta where I was walking not long ago. It’s a journey, a journey that I feel just started and all together very different.
At the non pretentious cafe, a good place for people-watching, a short man wearing vintage black original Wayfarer Ray-Bans and a tall blond woman walk in my direction: “Joelle? How are you? I am Umberto and this is Nicole Renaud my girlfriend (she’s French and a performing artist-she lives in the West Village in New York) and by the way we have 20 minutes today–is that okay for you?
“Umberto is very different from what I expected. He’s is funny, a rebel in his own way. I find out over two ristretti (Short expressos) and a grapefruit juice that he is the creator of the masterful photography book of Island of Capri. With texts by Capri-born writer Claretta Cerio, the book illustrates the Italian island in all its facets, contrasts and unique beauty.
Through dazzling black and white photography, and Claretta’s vivid texts, the book’s journey follows familiar and unfamiliar paths, opening perspectives that remain hidden from the casual visitor.
The beauty of nature, the magnificent villas of eccentric residents, the distinctive worlds of Capri and Annacapri, the accounts of luxury the jet set and trendy beaches, ancient palaces ,churches and cemeteries even faith and superstition are fascinating subjects illustrated with expressive photographs and described with humor and insider knowledge.
Francesco Durante wrote in the Corriere del Mezzogiorno, “Umberto D’Aniello’s photographs are the fruit of a deep and constant relationship with his island, in an endless and never satisfied quest. This is why his photos are always miraculously refreshing, even though some of them represent subjects that have been photographed a million if not a billiard times and therefore could have seemed kitch or déjà vu.”
By choosing to shoot in black and white, Umberto wishes to capture a surreal Mediterranean light beyond its plain colors. Dark clouds, reflecting waters, transcending sunshine… Whether pointing his lens at some mythical landscape, mysterious statue, splendid villa or religious procession, the photographer catches an instant melancholic poetry, neo-classical beauty, modern glamour.
He orders an espresso while Nicole talks to me about her latest CD released this summer and the joined work ” ” My heart is a bouquet” they did at the Villa Lysis last year. He tell me proudly he is also a musician as a hobby he is a member of a group of locals amateurs called Capri Cibum Cibum that play Cuban music in the manner of Buena Vista Social Club in a small tavern bar of the hotel Villa San Michele in Annacapri called Lanterna Verde.
But every time he changes the subject I bring it back to his work. I learn Umberto started his career casually when he was 23 on a trip to Paris. A Brazilian friend, the renowned photographer Sebastiao Salgado, showed a “view camera” and explained to him that when the light comes into it, you can interfere and that is the secret!. Umberto realizes that it is not just a mechanical act, something more happens with it! (There was the answer of my previous mental question in the bus!)
He is influenced by Cartier Bresson, Robert Doisneau, Edouard Boubat and Eikoh Hosoe and other black & white photography seen in exhibitions and workshops he attended in Paris. After a while he decides to bring back the emotional expression he absorbed with those masters to his beloved island.
Umberto’s twenty minute availability turned into a two-and-a-half hour encounter the next Sunday after we met. Upon my request, with his large lens, keen attentive eye, and a great sense of humor, he captured my essence in Capri through personal, precious and spontaneous moments near close friends, shops and small cafes. An unforgettable afternoon where I could grasp the illusory sensation of being, for just a moment, a movie star pictured in a black and white photographs like one of Sophia Loren at the climax of her colored years.
And if this is called La Dolce vita…please let it be.
Joelle’s Tips:
Check his first composition Video with musician Al Martino from Capri
The Book: Capri-Claretta Cerio, Yvonne Meyer-Lohr and Umberto D’Aniello -320 pages, black and white photographs edited by Yvonne Meyer-Lohr -Text by Claretta Cerio Photographs by Umberto D’Aniello- Prestel, 2007 www.prestel.com – available at Amazon
The Cafe: Cafe Michelangelo 138 Via G. Orlandi, Annacapri
The Performing Artist CD : Nicole Renaud
Couleurs
© 2008 Nicole Renaud
MP3 price: $8.00
(About MP3 downloads at CD Baby)
Ethereal moody original French songs. A love story seen through colors where each song is a color. 20 pages booklet included with lyrics in French and in English.
The piano-bar live music: La Lanterna Verde – At the Hotel San Michele in Anacapri, with breathtaking views overlooking the whole of the Gulf of Naples. By night-Via G. Orlandi, 1 -80071 Anacapri (Napoli)
Ph. +39 081 8371427 – Fax +39 081 8371420- smichele@capri.it
