Articolo disponibile anche in: Italian
To spend an our in Mario Forconi’s studio, “stolen” from his grown children’s old bedroom, is a privilege.
To see him fiddle around with his old registers, painstakingly written by hand, is an emotion. Because , in those registers, created from old notebooks, is the history of Tavarnelle and Barberino Val d’Elsa; thousands and thousands of photos of faces, of names.
It is a sort of photographic census of that was once was our towns. Mario put them together by knocking on doors, one at a time, loaning snapshots and documents and then rigorously returning them to their owners. Mario has given countless photo exhibitions in the community.
His presence, assiduous and reassuring, was at most of the public events which he immortalized with his camera, crystalizing the present for the future.
Mario Forconi has given a memory of images of priceless value to this territory; a ton of photographs which restore the past to those who lived it, to make it known to whom arrived later; housewives, share-croppers, barnyards, noble and poor, town festivals.
All of the love and passion that this extraordinary person spread out over all of these years are there; in those photos, in those registers. Thank you Mario. For everything.