Napoli, fortuna mia

‘Napoli, fortuna mia’ is the flip-side of a single that Gigliola Cinquetti released in 1964. She was only 16 at the time. In the same year she won the Eurovision Song Contest with ‘Non ho l’età’.

Since 2017 I’ve been to Naples four times, but I actually spent no more than half a day in the city and then in a very limited space. Each time I accompanied my parents on a cruise through the Mediterranean Sea. Our walk started on the Via Toledo and went along the Galleria Umberto up to the statue of Augustus. Not quite ‘off the beaten track’. Everyone expects the city to show its best side in these places.

I therefore consider my photo essay, resulting from these four short visits, as an exercise in seeing if the back side of a city and its inhabitants can shine through when you only get the chance to see the front.

As a documentary photographer I want to avoid linear stories with a sharp frame, but prefer association, frayed edges and room for imagination. I like to invite the viewer to do his own work.