This Is Italy
Photographer Herman Diks and his wife Jacqueline have a campsite in France, where they have lived for 30 years. When the camping season comes to an end, they often go to Italy, their other great love, for a month or more. From September 2020 they made a beautiful and at the same time frightening journey through an empty Italy. An Italy hit by COVID-19 and the lockdown. An Italy as they hope never to see it again, but which is fascinating at the same time.
Herman captured the journey in thousands of photos, taken with his smartphone. Precisely to keep it small, to easily take pictures in everyday situations that turned out to be nowhere really everyday. The smartphone photos are photos of an Italy struggling and coming back to life after being hit hard by the virus.
Herman Diks: 'For residents of France, traveling to yellow areas in Italy was allowed, so we went on a trip with our camper van. We didn't realize then that we had embarked on a unique journey. Italy was empty, there were no tourists. I've always taken a lot of photos with my smartphone and had decided to use just that one on this trip. That turned out to be a good thing because this way I could take a lot more photos without being noticed.'
The photos speak volumes. And that is exactly the idea that Herman had with it: processing the most striking photos in a unique book as a report of Italy during COVID-19. The design is already there. Also the title: The beauty and the bestia.
There is one problem. The necessary finances to convert the photos and captions into a real book are not yet available. Herman and Jacqueline have therefore set up a crowdfunding campaign. Anyone who is curious about the end result or finds it a sympathetic initiative can make a contribution to ensure that the photo book is made. In the unlikely event that the project does not succeed, you will always get your money back.
No lines in front of St. Peter's, total tranquility at the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain to yourself, these are memories that immediately surface when you virtually browse Herman's photos. But his impressions are also a mene tekel. There is an immense amount of human suffering behind it and the economic and sanitary consequences of the pandemic will be felt for a long time anyway.
Joost Flamand, Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Rome, Italy
Here is an impression of the photos Herman took during the lockdown in Italy:
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