Canon M6, 22 mm. ISO 400 & 800, various speeds @ f/4 & f/8
Consider this – it is quite possible that in a little under 2000 years’ time your current home or place of work will be part of a world famous heritage site, subject to the annual footfall of millions of tourists all fascinated by your ancient way of life. What would those tourists find? It is hard to imagine how the effects of long term decay or massive destruction might alter the buildings we see around us now. Factors would include the materials used during construction, the type of destruction suffered, environmental factors such as enduring weather patterns, etc…
For approximately 11,000 citizens of the Roman town of Pompeii in Italy, life came to an abrupt end in August of AD 79 courtesy of Mount Vesuvius. Over just a few days the whole town along with several others in the region, were obliterated by a massive volcanic eruption that buried the town with up to 6 m of volcanic ash. The impact of this total devastation was to create a remarkably well-preserved time capsule that was left undisturbed for some 1500 years.
I visited Pompeii in September 2017. Challenges of photographing there include… the sheer number of visitors and the need to obtain a permit to use a tripod. As a result I had to change my approach and shoot everything handheld. This wasn’t a problem as I could imagine a tripod becoming a burden in the presence of so many people but it meant the pictures I had hoped to take were not possible. As it turned out this was quite fortuitous since I became fascinated by the complex patterns and colours visible in the excavated ruins.
Some of the buildings are remarkably complete, whilst others show varying signs of disrepair. Equally present are signs of rebuilding that would have occurred following an earthquake some 17 years before Vesuvius. The use of different materials that often appear to be shoe-horned in to plug or wedge a gap provide interesting contrasts to their surroundings.
One aspect that I found particularly eye catching was the presence of layers of coloured plaster upon which preserved frescos sometimes contrasted with exposed underlying brickwork. The presence of the frescos themselves were not necessarily the main attraction in this case however, rather the contrast of textures and the varying shades and colours.
Once I decided to focus on these aspects my original aim was to produce a monochrome portfolio, but I found the subtleties in the colours too irresistible to ignore. All images are of vertical walls. I have purposely excluded any reference to scale in order to introduce an element of abstract into the patterns.
For eagle-eyed archaeologists, some of the images were taken at the nearby site of Herculaneum, that suffered the same fate as Pompeii. Upholding the alliterative name, the complete title could be “Patterns of Pompeii, Hues of Herculaneum”.