Infinito Finito, a photographic reportage in the Holy Land by Gaetano Armenio, 140 pages, Editrice L'Immagine, 2005

In 2005 I joined the Franciscans of Molfetta, who are the custodians of some of the most important sites in Christianity. I wasn’t setting off as a pilgrim. I set off with my cameras, to see what remained of two thousand years of history in places where Christians, Armenians, Orthodox Christians, Jews and Muslims cross paths every day.

The result was Infinito Finito, a 140-page full-colour photo-essay in Italian. Nazareth, the Sea of Tiberias, the River Jordan, Mount Tabor, Mount Nebo, Caesarea, Acre, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Petra, Amman. Editrice L’Immagine printed 200 copies, which were sold in bookshops.

The Holy Land is one of the most photographed places on the planet. Anyone who goes there comes back with the same postcard-perfect images. I wanted the opposite: to portray it without the veneer of tourism, capturing the rituals, the real faces and the underlying tension.

That’s why the photographs in this book don’t stand alone. They are accompanied by verses from Palestinian poets, edited by Lucia Avellis. Where I cast my gaze from the outside, those words gave voice to those who live there.

In certain places, there is no such thing as a neutral photograph. Whilst you are observing, you are being observed. The camera does not protect you; it exposes you. Ultimately, that book is not about the Holy Land; it is about what it means to travel through it with a lens in hand.

The publication of the feature article marked the start of the project LA VIA DI GERUSALEMME

Pasqua in Puglia, the guide to Holy Week rites in twenty Apulian towns, design by Gaetano Armenio

I put Apulian Holy Week into travellers' pockets: not a book for the bedside table, a guide to carry with you at night, while the processions actually pass by.

I built it on foot. I went to twenty towns, from Gargano to Salento, to see with my own eyes the night processions, the hooded confraternities, the troccolanti (rattle-bearers), the perdoni (pilgrims of pardon), the Baroque Mysteries. I also put in the cuddhura and the scarcella, the traditional Easter breads, because in Apulia Easter is lived at the table as much as in the street, and a guide that forgets this tells only half the feast.

The result was a pocket guide of 170 colour pages, in Italian, English and German. The small format is not a whim, it is the function: anyone who wants to follow those processions, not just read about them, needs practical information within reach while walking in the dark.

The real problem was order. Twenty towns, dozens of rites, dates that change every year. I organised everything by province, with maps, updated dates of the celebrations, the historical and artistic profiles of the main devotions, and the itineraries. Photographs, text, graphic design and layout I handled alone, one by one.

A procession cannot be explained from outside. You understand it only if you are there, at night, while it passes. That guide was not meant to describe Holy Week. It was meant to accompany anyone who had decided to live it.

Patroni di Puglia, the guide to patron saint festivals in 32 Apulian towns, design by Gaetano Armenio, 2012

In 2011 I built a guide for thirty-two towns on my own. One person, thirty-two administrations, a territory stretching from Gargano to Salento. Put that way it sounds like a mismatch, and in part it was.

It is the official publication of Patroni di Puglia, the first brand dedicated to Apulian patron saint festivals organised by type. A bilingual pocket guide in Italian and English, 160 colour pages, distributed free at international tourism fairs and to the 32 member towns.

The problem was not gathering the festivals. It was ordering them so an outsider could understand them. I divided them by type, the triumphal floats, the fireworks, the historical processions, the pilgrimages, the sea festivals. Each festival with its own profile, the practical information for anyone who wants to be there, and the hospitality standards agreed among the towns, because a festival is one thing and being ready to welcome those who arrive from elsewhere is another.

The bilingual format is not a whim. It brings the village festival to people who speak other languages, without dimming it into brochure translation. Editorial project, text, photographs, graphic design and layout I carried through on my own, from the first photograph to the last line.

A patron saint festival is not a calendar event. It is the way a town tells its own story once a year. Putting thirty-two of them in the same book without flattening them meant respecting, in each one, what makes it different from the others.

Tourism, religious and cultural promotion routes in Apulia, eighty pages by Gaetano Armenio, 2010

It was the first chapter of a story I did not yet know I was writing. It was an 80-page colour pamphlet, in Italian, on religious and cultural tourism itineraries in Apulia. At the time it was just an intuition put down on paper.

Looking at it today, I see it is one of the first tools in which my idea of experiential tourism takes shape, the one I would develop over the years with Holy Week in Apulia  and Patron Saints of Apulia  Back then I did not call it that. It was an idea that did not yet have a name, and only later became a method.

I built it as a practical manual. Project proposals with illustrated maps, technical profiles, photographic itineraries and concrete advice for anyone who wants to build or follow cultural and religious tourism routes in Apulia. At the centre of every proposal are two things I never abandoned after that, the experience of those who visit and respect for the traditions of those who welcome them. From the idea to the print I followed it line by line, editorial project, text, photographs, graphic design, layout.

I did not know, in 2010, that those eighty pages were a beginning. Important things rarely announce themselves. You realise it afterwards, when you find them inside everything you did later.