Neapolitan Religious Shrines

and

Festival of La Madonna dell’ Arco

In 1975, during my first trip to my native Italy, I visited Naples. How familiar it all was! The people, food, music, language, hand gestures, the venerated saints. For better or worse I had found my people. I am always eager to champion and defend Naples. Walking through the backstreets of the different Quartieri (neighborhoods) with its juxtaposition of past grandeur and crumbling tenements I experienced some of my deepest inspirations. The photographs from this series are a testimony to my dedication to this exciting city, to its pagan festivals, to its people searching for divine intervention, to the personal declaration of pride on faded walls, to its chaotic street life, to the Neapolitan art of “arrangiarsi” (to get by). Over the years I often found myself photographing the same scenes over and over again. When I ask myself why, the answer is: for the sheer joy of being there.