To tell by pictures

Nuccio Condorelli comments on two photos taken by his father and published on La Sicilia newspaper in 1968: «He taught me that a true photoreporter is a person who can look at something by far, empathizing with the pain other people feel. It is the best lesson about humility I have ever learnt in my life».

The two photos accompanying this article were taken by my father, Carmelo Condorelli, in January 1968 during Belice’s earthquake. I remember those days clearly, I was 12 years old and I had started to collaborate with my father in his photoreporting activity only a year before. When he came back from the Valle del Belice with some rolls to develop and had to choose the photos to publish on La Sicilia, he was very upset: he had travelled all night and could have not taken his eyes off the pain he had witnessed. He got to tell me: «Even stones showed pain».

Ph. Carmelo Condorelli – “La Sicilia” Historical Archive

He did not have any doubt about the choice of the two photos to send to the newspaper: the close-up of a woman who lost everything and another one of the disaster, highlighting the attention on what firemen had found there. He told me: «Even if you can’t see the firemen’s dismayed faces, it is evident that there is no word to comment on the disaster which has just occurred». Then, he got moved every time he saw those photos. He always thought about the suffering people he met and reminded to me that a true photoreporter is not a person who remains indifferent to the events he sees, but a one who can look at something by far and, if it is the case, empathizes with the pain other people feel. I have to say that it is the best lesson about humility I have ever learnt in my life, and I am grateful for it.

 

Translated into English by Daniela Marsala