John Anthony Rizzo
Mercatino San Pio Quinto
The market takes place at the end of my street every Friday morning. It is small, no more than seven farmers, all are local selling produce grown on their farms a few kilometers from town. Very quickly I realized the importance of this market and how something I had sought out for years as a photographer was happening at my doorstep. Most importantly I had the opportunity to documented something I am passionate about.
The portraits are from a larger body of work that began very casually during my first year living on Via San Pio Quinto. In the beginning I was simply a tourist taking pictures of a European Market. The second spring I decided to take out my long stored 6X7 film camera and trusty and solid Gitzo. I began exercising patience, observing more and conversing with the farmers and my neighbors. The large camera and big tripod resting off to the side as I shopped, grocery bags hanging on the tripod’s column, changed the dynamic. I was the American, a curiosity, the enthusiastic guy with the Italian name who lived here. “What are you doing “ Is this for TV ? What do you do with the pictures?” I would explain in halting Italian and fractured English that I wanted to document something that was special, important and may not be here for the next generation. Quickly I was part of their community, as if I had lived here all my life. I was part of the market, expected every Friday to take photographs, shop and most importantly socialize. How is your wife ? Is she working today ? How is your mom in the USA ? Many, now less timid, speaking proudly to me in more and more English, the English they studied in school forty years ago. Funny, now making photographs has become almost secondary to keeping up on our lives and what is going on.
I love these photographs for their Honesty and warmth, their intimacy and energy and the happiness (satisfaction) and hard work reflected on their faces. And the simplicity of life lived locally.
The portraits are from a larger body of work that began very casually during my first year living on Via San Pio Quinto. In the beginning I was simply a tourist taking pictures of a European Market. The second spring I decided to take out my long stored 6X7 film camera and trusty and solid Gitzo. I began exercising patience, observing more and conversing with the farmers and my neighbors. The large camera and big tripod resting off to the side as I shopped, grocery bags hanging on the tripod’s column, changed the dynamic. I was the American, a curiosity, the enthusiastic guy with the Italian name who lived here. “What are you doing “ Is this for TV ? What do you do with the pictures?” I would explain in halting Italian and fractured English that I wanted to document something that was special, important and may not be here for the next generation. Quickly I was part of their community, as if I had lived here all my life. I was part of the market, expected every Friday to take photographs, shop and most importantly socialize. How is your wife ? Is she working today ? How is your mom in the USA ? Many, now less timid, speaking proudly to me in more and more English, the English they studied in school forty years ago. Funny, now making photographs has become almost secondary to keeping up on our lives and what is going on.
I love these photographs for their Honesty and warmth, their intimacy and energy and the happiness (satisfaction) and hard work reflected on their faces. And the simplicity of life lived locally.