I photographed instinctively, not worrying too much about if it was right or wrong. Kolkata for me was no longer the suffering city, but became alive and smiling...

There is no place in the world that moved me more than Kolkata, India.

It ‘s like peeling an onion: you take off one layer at a time and you go deeper and deeper. So it was during my various trips to Kolkata.

Every time I thought it was going to be the last and instead while I was there I discovered something new that pushed me to come back again. This is also what happens in the photos you take every day: not a superficial view, because what you need to do is always to try to understand the place, the atmosphere, and the person who sits in front of you. Kolkata is one of the first challenges I faced. A sort of test to see if I had the ability to get along in a unknown and certainly not easy metropolis.

I started photographing in the slums, on behalf of a non-profit organization. I was accompanied by an interpreter and I had a few minutes to point and shoot. Not a word to the people I met on the street, only a few gestures, the interpreter had the task of explaining who I was and why I was there. Every time I went away from an interesting situation I was sad because I was not able to communicate with people. I couldn’t enter in their homes, and spend a bit of time with them. I felt like I only scratched the surface, and didn’t understand what those places had to offer. The day before coming back to Europe, I heard by chance that in Kolkata there was an elderly French priest who had founded schools and hospitals. His story inspired Dominique Lapierre to write his best-seller book ” The city of joy”. I entered in the plane knowing that in a few months I would be back again to tell another story. And so it was, six months later I was back again, but living in an orphanage, among the children, eating with them and playing with them. My equipement was a Leica M6 and 28mm film in black and white. Looking, looking, looking: movements, gestures, expression. The photos came out easily, because to be there for 10 days, always in the same place, always with the same people around me, gave me the possibility to predict what would happens next and where. No problem to approach, everyone knew who I was, why I was there and what I was doing.

And finally, I was aware about what I was doing there too. I photographed instinctively, not worrying too much about if it was right or wrong. Kolkata for me was no longer the suffering city, but became alive and smiling. I saw the city with completely different eyes. There were palaces, art, life, religion. My entire life would not be enough to see everything. I was curious and tried to get as much information as possible about everything I saw around. For some days I became a detective, looking for all the possible information about what was happening around me. That’s how I met an architect who was in charge of the protection of heritage buildings and thanks to him I could see and photograph both sides of Kolkata: the magnificent and restored palaces and those in which 50 families lived together. Honestly I found these latter ones more interesting … I spent days with my camera in the district of Cumarthuly, where artisans build huge idols of mud for the Durgha Puja festival, which takes place in September, and that was my third trip. In the chaos of the streets where artisans from all over India come together to meet the huge demand for statues, the most important thing is to keep calm, look and not succumb to the temptation to photograph everything.

Very often you need to put aside your camera and give yourself a bit of time to observe. Then sometimes after you spent half a day scouting around everything happens in a few minutes, and this is when you must be ready. You became so aware of everything around you that the technical staffs don’t obsess you anymore, as it is so obvious where and what you have to do. Tips: leave at home anything that can hinder you during the day. Do not think too much about how many camera body and how many lenses you will need, try with just one camera and one lens. I usually use the 28mm. Although it can scare someone I assure you that is the only way to understand what you can do moving around and that your behavior and your body language will make you accepted or not by those in front of you . A few years later I started teaching photography and holding workshops around the world, and where could I start if not from Kolkata? My first photographic workshop as a teacher was right in Kolkata.