Vito Fusco: The Photographer Who Removes Time to Restore the Soul of the Coast

Between Commerce and Authorship: A Photographer Against Specialisation
"I am against the concept of absolute specialisation," Vito states with conviction. "Professionally I am an interior photographer, but the artistic aspect is documentary. I like to cross-pollinate things."

It is precisely in this tension between commercial work and authorial research that his photographic language develops: aesthetics and human storytelling that merge, refusing rigid categories. Not artistic photography, but authorial photography — a more difficult level to reach, requiring a recognisable personal voice.

His path is studded with international recognition: his first publication in National Geographic Italia in 2009, then El País, victory in the Nikon Photo Contest, the Silk Road Global News Award – Documentary Award, the Sony World Photography Award with "The Killing Daisy". Among his most significant projects, "Stonewall: The Temple", created in New York and sponsored by Amnesty International.

The Photographs at Hotel Margherita: Removing Time to Restore Essence
The idea uniting Vito Fusco's works at Hotel Margherita is precise and radical: black and white that removes places and subjects from time. It is not nostalgia, but a way to immerse the viewer in a reality that escapes today's clichés.

Andrea Ferraioli and Suela Cimino, the hotel's patrons, asked Vito for a cross-section of the unique Amalfi Coast: not postcards, but visions representing the various towns and places, removing the time variable. The architecture of places — the Furore Fjord, the Amalfi Paper Mill, the houses of Positano that in black and white reveal incredible nuances — become timeless protagonists.

There is also a tribute to the great artists and painters who inhabited these places, a common thread linking memory and the character of our places. "There are photographic references, especially of Positano, to painters who lived in our areas," Vito explains. "A tribute to the good fortune of living in these places."

But it is not only the architecture: there are also plants and nature, not as fictitious decorative elements but as true structural elements of the Coast. Places and people are the essence. The objective is to bring tourists back to the concept of simplicity — one of the most important reasons that made the Amalfi Coast so interesting and fascinating.

The Local Photographer's Challenge: The Art of Not Being Recognised
Working as a documentary photographer on the Coast carries a particular challenge: the need for invisibility. "Walking through Positano and taking a candid photo of a fisherman without being recognised is, in a sense, a handicap," Vito admits. The photographer needs that distance which allows reality to manifest spontaneously.

It is the eternal tension between belonging and detachment: knowing the places intimately but being able to look at them as a stranger would, being inside but photographing from outside. A condition that Vito transforms into a strength, combining deep knowledge of the territory with the ability to always see it with fresh eyes.

Light Like Caravaggio: Photography, Literature and Depth
"Paradoxically I am a lover of Caravaggio, who for me is a photographer and not a painter," Vito confesses. "If he had been born in another era, he would have used a camera."

It is Caravaggio's contrast of light that guides his research: the idea that there is always something coming from a shadow, that in photography there is always a good part in shadow that justifies the light. "The great problem with photography is having two dimensions instead of three," he explains. "You give depth by working with light to give plasticity to the images."

But there is an even more radical statement that defines his approach: "Photography is much closer to literature than to visual art." It is a declaration that overturns conventional categories, emphasising narration, the internal time of the image, the ability to tell rather than simply show.

Among his ideal masters, Giovanni Gastel in and his lesson on "magnificent failures" — all the wrong photos that teach more than the successful ones. It is a humble approach, recognising error as an essential part of the creative journey.

The Coast as Inexhaustible Source: Cliffs, Light and Daily Wonder
"The cliffs, the naturalistic part: that is the fundamental substance of the Coast," Vito affirms. "If I get up early in the morning and see the illuminated cliffs, every minute the light changes and changes their shape."

It is a harsh place in how nature created it, but not for the inhabitants for whom it is natural to live with the limits and difficulties that living here means. This acceptance, this coexistence with the territory's harshness, is part of the Coast's deep identity.

Although he travels all over the world for his projects — he has worked in New York, documented the Silk Road, explored distant cultures — the Coast remains an inexhaustible source of inspiration for him. "I am still amazed every day," he confesses. It is the wonder of someone who knows how to look, of someone who never takes anything for granted.