With this book, international photographer Uli Weber offers a powerful tribute to Southern Italy: a visual journey from Sicily to Sardinia, from Puglia to Abruzzo, capturing the power of the contrasts that make Southern Italy unique.
Glimpses of absolute harmony coexist with signs of disharmony and abandonment; pristine natural landscapes alternate with traces of human and urban development. It is in this precarious and fascinating balance that Weber finds his poetic signature, capable of transforming landscapes into emotion and revealing their symbolic dimension.
His photography transcends tourist clichés to offer a contemporary Grand Tour, an iconographic narrative that invites us to look beyond the surface and grasp the profound connection between humanity and its environment. The undisputed protagonist is light, which at times cuts through reality with surgical precision, at others envelops places in dreamlike atmospheres.
The images are accompanied by texts by Dame Helen Mirren, an Oscar-winning actress committed to the Save the Olives association, which fights the devastation of centuries-old olive trees in Puglia caused by Xylella, and by Denis Curti, a photography historian and critic, who offers insights into a work poised between poetry and testimony. Part of the proceeds from the volume will go to support the activities of Save the Olives, making a concrete contribution to the protection of a unique natural and cultural heritage.
Dame Helen Mirren, a naturalized American English actress and winner of an Oscar for Best Actress for The Queen, is involved here for her role in the Save the Olives non-profit organization, founded to address the Xylella epidemic in Puglia.
Denis Curti is a photography historian and critic, Artistic Director of Stanze della Fotografia, author of numerous books and catalogs on major Italian and international photographers, and curator of exhibitions in Italy and abroad.
Uli Weber, an internationally renowned photographer, was born in Germany and trained in Rome, and lives between London and Italy. A master of fine art photography and portraiture, he has exhibited in leading museums and galleries such as the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Saatchi Gallery. Author of volumes such as Portraits (2010), Goodwood Revival (2014), and The Allure of Horses (2018), he has held exhibitions worldwide. In 2024, he published Dive & Madrine with Electa and Cinecittà, which won second prize at the 2025 International Photography Awards (IPA) in the photography book category.
