Comunicare il paesaggio. La fotografia come strumento di lettura delle trasformazioni del territorio

Following the alterations generated by the industrialization process, guided by the continuous domination of nature in the name of progress, photography has allowed us to observe the permanence and transformations on the territory. Gregotti in his essay "La Forma Del Territorio" (1966) gives particular attention to the tools inherent in modern art, such as photography, painting and cinema. According to the architect, in fact, these tools have the ability to immediately highlight the descriptive and representative dynamics of a territory, thus becoming extremely important also in the architectural field for their anticipatory role of reality. The comparison of representations of the same places made at different times allows us to reconstruct the sequential phases of the history of those territories and the communities that inhabit them. From this premise, the article intends to highlight the important role of aerial views of landscapes as a source of analysis for the knowledge, cataloging and enhancement of landscape resources. Aerial views have already been the subject of interest of many contemporary photographers, such as Mario Giacomelli and Alex MacLean . Giacomelli has created a work of reflection on the landscapes of his lands through an abstract vision, full of exasperated contrasts. While MacLean proceeded with a completely different approach from the Italian photographer. Using the unrivaled revealing abilities of aerial photography, he based the central motif of his art on "territorial transformations". From their way of communicating the landscape, the article intends to provide a reflection also on the Mediterranean territories, on how human beings are creating their own world as a palimpsest on the original landscape and wants to inspire new suggestions for the adoption of future measures in our environment.