The Daily Norm’s Photo of the Week: The Napoli Puddle of Mystery

Following on from the all sparkling, all dancing spectacle of yesterday’s Italian festive lights post, today’s post, and indeed this week’s Daily Norm photograph of the week, focuses specifically on one photo from Italy which, like yesterday, features Christmas lights, but is characterised by an altogether different mood. With its gloomy dark lighting, this photograph is an altogether more mysterious image, one which feels edgy, and almost intimidating, as though we have emerged from the darkness which surrounds the frame of the photo. In the sinister blue glow, the glistening cobbles of a Naples street can be seen, fresh after a recent rainfall. The crack down the cobbles, which has collected more water owing to the incline of the road runs almost like a wound through the centre of the photo; while the puddle in the centre, reflecting the street decorations hung above, looks like some kind of mysterious magical cauldron, filled with a potion created with a sorcerer’s touch.

The fact of the matter is that no matter how fantastical my description, or indeed the finish of this photo may be, it was taken in the notoriously dark, gloomy and at times dangerous streets of Naples’ old town one December evening after the rain. Because of the rainfall, the usually crowded streets were near deserted, and the shop keepers had shut up shop for the night. That made the area, with its dark unforgiving alleyways no friend of the guileless tourist, and for me this photo carries with it the dark edginess of the mood prevailing at that time. Needless to say, shortly after it was taken my partner and I ran off to the safety of our hotel, my camera safely stowed away as we did so!

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