After spending forty days in quarantine, Philipe finally got a chance to move into Dubrovnik.
July 2014, panorama from 5 vertical images, additional exposures for highlights, focal length 16mm, aperture f/11, shutter speed 8 seconds, ISO 100, tripod.
He wanted to get down on his knees before the Holy Saviour Church to praise whatever Lord for letting him survive his time in the god forsaken Lazareti, but it’d been so long he thought any sort of god would not have an eager ear to listen to trauma-drive his praise.
The quarantine in the Lazareti was for plague victims and anyone entering the city. All who entered the city were sentenced to forty days in this death hall. Who knew how many lost their lives inside of the walls of the Lazareti? One has to wonder how effective their quarantine method served to protect the city from the plague.
As I take this shot in the morning, it is hard to imagine this Dubrovnik in the dark ages of the plague. Disease, filth and death are not commonly what one thinks about when visiting such a major tourist destination.
When capturing this photo I selected to use a panoramic composition of the Holy Saviour Church, Franciscan Monastery and the Great Onofrio Fountain. What would these monument look like to someone who just spent 40 days quarantined? Perhaps as overwhelming beautiful yet haunted as these historical landmarks look to me hundreds of years later.
