Photographer Mark Harrison goes 'Alla Moda' at Ruskins (From The Westmorland Gazette)
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Photographer Mark Harrison goes 'Alla Moda' at Ruskins
8:40am Friday 25th November 2011 in Art
A QUIRKY and humorous new exhibition has captured a true picture of Italy beyond the tourist trail.
Running at Kendal’s Ruskins cafe bar and gallery, at Smokehouse Yard, until January 14, Mark Harrison’s Alla Moda exhibition is the photographic results of the skilled lensmen’s Italian trip earlier this year, exploring Naples, Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast.
Mark’s travel photography has taken him to 60 countries where he has documented the ordinary and sometimes extraordinary lives of the people.
The Italy Mark said he encountered was seldom a picture of perfection.
He described it as noisy, dirty, rough, fast-paced and as “hot as a pizza oven.”
In just eight days he sampled the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum, a climb up the dormant volcano Vesuvius, a boat trip across the Bay of Naples to the expensive island of Capri, strolls in the wilds around romantic Sorrento, a walk around precipitous Positano with its never-ending steps, and a gut-wrenching bus trip along and the Amalfi Coast.
He added: “The most highly recommended locations - Positano, Capri and central Sorrento - were expensive tourist traps awash with whining Americans, bewildered Japanese people and bolshy Italians whose pockets seemed to leak cash.”
However, Mark - chief photographer at The Westmorland Gazette - said there was real life in Naples - not the sanitised, over-priced, kitsch version of Italy that was offered in so many places.
He said he hoped that his photographs had captured some of the gritty charm of modern Italy.
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