The photo was taken in Pesaro, a city in the Marche region, central Italy, which also becomes a popular beach holiday destination in the summer.

But the photo was taken in winter; I like to visit places out of season; you can find a slightly alienating, almost abandoned atmosphere. I think visiting places like this when they’re uninhabited helps you reflect on their very nature.

In winter, the beach seems forgotten, and it is precisely in that absence that it reveals its silent beauty. The winter sea seems to hold silences unknown in summer. It is a suspended space, where quiet mingles with the power of the waves and invites us to look within ourselves with the same depth with which the water touches the horizon.

A Magnum book was titled “Wear Comfortable Shoes.” If I remember correctly, this means that you have to go and look for the stories, and walking helps to train your gaze; that’s why in places like this, I can find the right inspiration for the photography I like.

This photo is part of a journey I’ve undertaken as an amateur photographer studying landscapes. Being an architect by profession, I’m drawn to landscapes, and following in the footsteps of master Italian photographers like Luigi Ghirri, Giovanni Chiaramonte, and others, I try to interpret the Italian landscape and its distinctive features through the lens of my camera.

I don’t usually seek out urban landscapes of large cities, but rather simple, unremarkable places, perhaps to understand how human presence interacts with them. In fact, this photo is part of a personal project of mine called “Le cose umani – a man altered landscape,” a project that focuses on the traces that humans, with their presence or absence, leave on the landscape around them.

What are the TWO most impactful features that make your image a good photograph? Don’t be shy!

The alienating atmosphere of the beach resort out of season and the contrast between this and the palm trees, which are usually associated with the sun, summer, and holidays, yet places exist in themselves even when we don’t experience them, and this can sometimes be unsettling.

If you could make this photo again, what would be the ONE thing you would like to do better or differently?

I would wait for a person walking alone to pass by in the background.

Stefano Aluigi shared this photograph with the FRAMES Facebook Group.

Photographer

Stefano Aluigi, Italy

INSTAGRAM