Pompeii as you’ve never seen it… in photos

Italian photographer Luigi Spina publishes a beautiful book entitled “Pompeian Interiors”, with photos of the famous archaeological site taken in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In Pompeian interiorsit highlights the incredible colors of the frescoes, the beauty of the ruins, the volumes of the houses… The Italian Luigi Spina photographed Pompeii, near Naples, in a very particular context, that of the pandemic, when the city was empty.

The first thing that struck the photographer was the silence, “a deafening silence, a little intimidating”, remembers Luigi Spina, met in a café in Rome. Armed with his “Hasselblad”, the cameras that went to the Moon, and adorned with this incredible luxury that is time, he captures the colors of the frescoes, as in this “domus”, nicknamed “the house of hunting “. “There is a huge wall on which there are hunting scenes. We have the impression for a moment that everything is starting to move, with shades of yellow, green, blue“, says Luigi Spina.

Suspended moments

Luigi Spina spent his days in Pompeii, from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., and he saw night fall on the site. “I perhaps felt the presence of the volcano even more strongly [le Vésuve]you see it, which stands out in this twilight light”he describes.

In a city without tourists, in a world in the midst of a pandemic, the small moments of daily life shared with the guardians of Pompeii take on particular significance for the photographer. “I remember this coffee taken at the beginning of the afternoon with them, in total emptiness, this smell of coffee. There was this certainty, at least at that moment”, says the photographer.

Pompeii tells us that everything can disappear in an instant, Luigi Spina reflects. He captured what remains in this magnificent book, Pompeian interiorsa version of which in French is published by the publishing house 5 Continents (150 euros).