by Lucia Varlotta
This past week, Trieste became the subject of a street photography workshop hosted by internationally acclaimed photographers Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb. Throughout the week, a group of photographers from around the world roamed the city, each finding unique inspiration from different scenes of daily life in Trieste.
Some focused on the typical sights of Triestini tanning under the autumn sun at Barcola or children turning the cobbled streets into their playground, while others showcased the experience of refugees living in the city or the adverse effects of time on some of Trieste’s once-pristine Austro-Hungarian buildings.
At a closing event aptly titled How International Photographers See Our City, each presented their final work and shared their perspective on the most interesting aspects of Trieste. Here, we caught up with the founders of the workshop to hear about their mission and what brought them to photograph our city on the Adriatic.
Alex Webb and Rebbeca Norris Webb are a New York based photography duo who have been creating acclaimed work for nearly three decades, including numerous individual and collaborative books and collections. The pair have also taught photography workshops for museums, universities, and other organizations from around the world.
What was your inspiration for creating this photography workshop?
Alex Webb: “We try to encourage people to explore a place and find their own way of seeing the world. We believe that if you are in touch with yourself as a photographer, that comes through in your work. Everyone’s different backgrounds, different experiences, and different education contribute to their unique style. But getting to that place is difficult, since we are inundated with so many photographs on the internet and with advertising. So we ask people to go out and immerse themselves in new locations every day to slowly build a set of pictures of the course of a week. Then, Rebecca and I work with them to select their best work everyday to build a coherent story, collection and style by the end of the week.”
What do you hope the photographers will take away from this week?
Rebecca Norris Webb: “We’ve been teaching now for over 20 years on six different continents. In addition to learning to shape a photo series, we’re also trying to create a community with our workshops. We’ve been lucky enough to have people join our workshops from at least a dozen different countries, so we bring these photographers from around the world together and then hope they can continue to stay in touch with each other to build a meaningful network”
Why did you choose to host the workshop here in Trieste?
Rebecca Norris Webb: “We were supposed to visit Trieste a few years ago for the annual Trieste Photo Days festival, but couldn’t come because of the pandemic. So we had been thinking about Trieste for a while and it was top of mind when we decided to do our next workshop in Italy.”
Alex Webb: “We’ve previously done workshops in other parts of Italy – the places that people first think of when they think of Italy. But, we thought it would be interesting to come visit a border city. I’m often attracted to borders in my own work so we thought Trieste would be an interesting location for our photographers to experience, where different cultures collide.”
What did you think of your visit to Trieste?
Alex Webb: “It was actually my first visit to Trieste. It’s such a beautiful city on the water and I’ve absolutely loved it.”
Where can we take a look at the photographers’ work from this week featuring Trieste?
Rebecca Norris Webb: “The work should be shown at the next Trieste Photo Days festival.”
