I walked out along the breakwater because there was nowhere else to go. That is the thing about Vernazza. The town ends and then there is rock, and then there is sea, and you stand between the two with salt on your lips and the whole village behind you like a painting someone leaned against a wall to dry.
The houses stack up in ochre, in terracotta, in a faded pink that has no business being that beautiful. They have been this way longer than anyone alive can remember, and the light at this hour knows exactly what to do with them. It comes in low and copper, catching the bell tower last, like a hand placed on a shoulder. The nets are spread along the stone, still damp, smelling of rope and morning labor. A few boats sit with their hulls tipped, waiting for nothing.
There is no one here. Not a single person on the breakwater at 21:06 on a Tuesday. I can hear the water moving underneath me, and somewhere up in the village a television, and behind that the particular silence of an Italian town deciding it is done for the day. My father would call this l’ora d’oro and my mother would just sit down and be quiet, which is the higher compliment. I loaded the last frames of a roll I started in Genova and let the Leica do what it does. Some places you compose. Some places are already composed, and you just show up and witness.
I keep thinking about layers. The geological ones, obviously, the cliff face is ridiculous, but also the human ones. Paint over paint over plaster over stone. Nets mended so many times they are more repair than original thread. I sat on the breakwater until the tower went dark and the houses became silhouettes, and I thought about how some things only look this honest when no one is performing them. The town did not know I was watching. That is when the photograph happens.
