Open Category: Photojournalism / Story (AMATEUR) - HONORABLE MENTION
THE WALL OF SILENCE
Photo © Mauro De Bettio
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At 22:39 on October 9, 1963, a 2 km long landslide of more than 270 million cubic meters of rock breaks off the Toc mountain and slip down the valley, crashing inside the artificial lake. The water forms a 250m high wave that flies in the sky and then crashes down on Longarone,
erasing it forever from the maps.Two thousand people are, now, one with the earth. Only 50 are the survivors.
Everything was done to take away their dignity, to convince them that nothing was due to them.
The greatest protagonist of this painful and infinite catastrophe is the silence that wounds the dead, the relatives, the survivors,
the rescuers and all those who came after.Still, the silence of a family, mine. For them, as for me, it’s a path,
to get rid of a nightmare that began on that day. A path to start talking again, to trust and to love.
I was born and lived in this village for over 40 years but only last year I found the courage to face my parents and get them to help me bringing up the bad memory of that tragedy that that struck down their youth. To take pictures of my family and all those places and to interview them and listen the facts for the first time in my life actually helped bring me and my family closer together as never before.
“Although it is difficult to express, I think that the photograph represents my way of speaking and what I try to do through my language is to capture the sense of what I breathe and touch with my hands. Not only in appearance but also, and especially, in the essence; trying to express nuances and subtleties contained in a single frame. I think that’s part of my personality and my work fully expresses what I am. My story, my soul”.
“Photography is a fantastic storytelling medium. Just ask yourself what story you want to tell and photography can bring you there”.
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At 22:39 on October 9, 1963, a 2 km long landslide of more than 270 million cubic meters of rock breaks off the Toc mountain and slip down the valley, crashing inside the artificial lake. The water forms a 250m high wave that flies in the sky and then crashes down on Longarone,
erasing it forever from the maps.Two thousand people are, now, one with the earth. Only 50 are the survivors.
Everything was done to take away their dignity, to convince them that nothing was due to them.
The greatest protagonist of this painful and infinite catastrophe is the silence that wounds the dead, the relatives, the survivors,
the rescuers and all those who came after.Still, the silence of a family, mine. For them, as for me, it’s a path,
to get rid of a nightmare that began on that day. A path to start talking again, to trust and to love.
I was born and lived in this village for over 40 years but only last year I found the courage to face my parents and get them to help me bringing up the bad memory of that tragedy that that struck down their youth. To take pictures of my family and all those places and to interview them and listen the facts for the first time in my life actually helped bring me and my family closer together as never before.
About author:
Born and raised in a little village in the Italian Alps, now based in Barcelona, Mauro already felt from young age the desire to tell. He discovered that the camera was the right tool for him, the eye through which he could speak to the world. An instrument that began to walk by his side towards a long journey of discovery. Definitely, to grow by himself, without the influence of schools, courses and lessons has slowed down the process of technical knowledge, but because of this he learned his own way of seeing and been formed and shaped by the environment and the people who surrounded him in his long travels.“Although it is difficult to express, I think that the photograph represents my way of speaking and what I try to do through my language is to capture the sense of what I breathe and touch with my hands. Not only in appearance but also, and especially, in the essence; trying to express nuances and subtleties contained in a single frame. I think that’s part of my personality and my work fully expresses what I am. My story, my soul”.
“Photography is a fantastic storytelling medium. Just ask yourself what story you want to tell and photography can bring you there”.
BACK TO GALLERY
