Charlie


  • Photographer
    Lorenzo Martelli
  • Prize
    2nd Place / Editorial/Other_ED
  • Date of Photograph
    2010/2011

"But what did he see? Absurdity and wretchesness, absurdity and wretchesness. And with the torment and the pride of such insight came loneliness; for he could not feel at ease among the innocent, among the light of heart and dark of understanding, and they shrank from the sign on his brow." (T. Mann, Tonio Kröger)   His grandfather was the one who renounced wealth and nobility titles leaving Charlie with the longing of still running the long lost family lands. Years ago, he was a brilliant radio script writer, his friends used to call him The Count because of his sophisticated manners, a fragile remnant of the baronial title that would be his right. From the seventies, Charlie has shared his daily life with more than thirty stray dogs.  Today he still has four plus nearly forty cats.  From the moment he started devoting his energies to his animals he never left Milan and rarely ventures out of his own neighborhood.  “Never a single vacation day” he often pointed out to me without hiding a certain pride “never a day in bed, but now I feel that I am getting very tired physically and mentally”. In the spring, 2010, I asked Charlie permission to take pictures of him.  Before my intrusion, the apartment in which he had been born and raised was but a fortress that has remained sealed for decades.  “I am not my home” he kept telling me over and over, but one day he decided to let me in.

Story

"But what did he see? Absurdity and wretchesness, absurdity and wretchesness. And with the torment and the pride of such insight came loneliness; for he could not feel at ease among the innocent, among the light of heart and dark of understanding, and they shrank from the sign on his brow." (T. Mann, Tonio Kröger)

His grandfather was the one who renounced wealth and nobility titles leaving Charlie with the longing of still running the long lost family lands.

Years ago, he was a brilliant radio script writer, his friends used to call him The Count because of his sophisticated manners, a fragile remnant of the baronial title that would be his right.

From the seventies, Charlie has shared his daily life with more than thirty stray dogs. Today he still has four plus nearly forty cats. From the moment he started devoting his energies to his animals he never left Milan and rarely ventures out of his own neighborhood. “Never a single vacation day” he often pointed out to me without hiding a certain pride “never a day in bed, but now I feel that I am getting very tired physically and mentally”.

In the spring, 2010, I asked Charlie permission to take pictures of him. Before my intrusion, the apartment in which he had been born and raised was but a fortress that has remained sealed for decades. “I am not my home” he kept telling me over and over, but one day he decided to let me in.

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