Photography is the visual representation of what I see but also of what I smell. This concept has driven my need to photograph during last summer. When I was a child, I used to go on holiday with my family to Sardinia. Every time we arrived in an isolated and unspoiled beach, Titti, a friend of my father, told us children to breathe deeply and memorize those mediterranean smells. She said that during the winter months, the memory of these smells would be able to take us back to our past sunny summer.

I have tried to apply this philosophy ever since and especially when I am travelling. In my opinion, smell is often neglected compared to the other senses. In fact, it is the most powerful of all because it is able to quickly trigger a stream of images in my mind. Unfortunately today there isn’t still a way to record smell, but we can photograph those objects, people, animals or places whose memories of smell can take our mind far away in time and space. This series is a collection of mediterranean close-up snapshots. These photographs have been shot really close to the object’s surface, so that my sense of smell can be active, too. They evoke through my eyes memories of last summer’s smell. These are like a fireplace that warms me up on cold winter nights.

Pietro on IG