The baffling enchantment of the candy-coloured waterpark: Massimo Siragusa’s finest {photograph} | Artwork and design

Italy has a few of the most lovely pure seashores in Europe, so I discover it fascinating that so many holidaymakers select to go to locations just like the one on this {photograph}: an odd manufactured island with plastic palm bushes. This picture is from a collection, Leisure Time, that was vital to me. I began it at a time once I had numerous private issues, in 2006 and 2007. I wanted to do one thing that might change my imaginative and prescient, my approach of seeing the world, and even to some extent reinvent myself.

I’ve all the time been inquisitive about landscapes, cities, and the connection between individuals and the environments they inhabit. The theme I made a decision to work on was mass tourism. I wished to open our eyes to this unusual side of recent life: the truth that individuals favor to spend time at some synthetic park or seaside, reasonably than go to an actual one.

Many individuals wish to go on vacation to a spot the place they know precisely what to anticipate, and are by no means going to be stunned or uncover something by likelihood. Many can even flock to websites they’ve seen different individuals submit photos of on Instagram – usually distorting the truth of that location. They will take their photos with out taking the time to interact with the place. And in the present day, even when vacationers do go to a pure attraction, comparable to a mountain within the Alps, they look forward to finding one thing good to eat there, with music, and a excessive stage of service. They need the identical issues now we have in a metropolis. But that isn’t the essence of mountains, which we should always actually go to to seek out refuge, calm and reference to the pure world.

I researched and photographed in vacation parks across the Tre Cime di Lavaredo mountains within the Dolomites, in addition to on cruises – an more and more well-liked kind of vacation, particularly for younger individuals. An Italian cruise firm, Costa, allowed me to spend per week on a ship, however when photographing the amusement parks, I largely went in as simply one other vacationer reasonably than as a journalist. I didn’t wish to change the best way individuals have been behaving by showing an excessive amount of like I used to be doing skilled work, so I’d costume in swimwear like them and do the identical issues.

At the time, I used to be utilizing a fairly heavy medium-format digicam, which wasn’t probably the most handy option to work. If I did the identical mission in the present day, I’d most likely use an iPhone – that might be the proper option to obtain the images I wished with out drawing consideration to myself. The strategy I’ve taken with the brightness of my Leisure Time photos is my approach of accenting the unusual, unnatural character of those locations: every part is meant to be excellent and made in sweet colors that enchantment to kids.

The lady within the black swimsuit is an actual central presence – the best way she’s standing within the pretend sea and searching over the substitute island, as if gazing at a scene of pure surprise. The {photograph} was taken both within the Mirabilandia water park or the Gardaland Resort, each within the north of Italy. The incontrovertible fact that I can’t inform precisely which with out checking is maybe revealing in itself. They’re not an identical, however they’ve the identical environment. In impact, this park may have been wherever.

Massimo Siragusa’s picture is a part of the World Press Photo seventieth anniversary print sale, 17-26 November. His e book Etna might be launched in November by Cavallotto Editions.