The Campanaccio of San Mauro Forte.

The photographer's camera lens is a secret door into the past. It’s like a window from which you can look through ages and watch men and their stories from the past, our past. Lucania, his native land, is the best set for him and his photography: its rugged outlines, the street stones, the faces furrowed by the ravages of time that reminds us the folds of the hills. The photographer and his land seem to interact, they understand each other. They deeply know their souls. Mariano wants to share with us this silent and mysterious dialogue, by indicating the points where you can catch the sound of this quasi-spiritual conversation. These points are his shots that perfectly capture the combination of time and space. Clouds and hills, the old traditions — like that of Campanaccio of San Mauro Forte — draw the circular and endless flowing of time. The camera goes back to the past to deeply breathe the smell of the ancient times and then comes to us to blow it on our faces. If you look at his shots, you might run the risk to get lost. But in space, not in time. Your eyes mix up the profiles of nature with those of the faces. They do not understand where they are. So Mariano succeeds in his attempt to make us get lost in the corners full of poetry that he catches for us.