From the massacre of Chilivani to the flood, from the kidnapping of Farouk Kassam to Berlusconi who in front of Putin mimics the gesture of the pistol in front of a Russian journalist: a selection of shots from Gallura that have entered Sardinia's recent history were illustrated and commented on in a meeting organized by the Mario Cervo Archive at the Mus Mat. Protagonists of the event, moderated by Tommy Rossi, in a packed room, the historic Olbian photojournalists of Sardinian newspapers, Antonio Satta of L'Unione Sarda and Gavino Sanna of La Nuova Sardegna.
Thus many background stories of the shots that have appeared on the front pages in the last thirty years have been revealed. With a dutiful tribute to Nello Di Salvo, the photographer who died today, known to the general public for his first shots of the Costa Smeralda. «When I started taking my first photographs I was fifteen», Satta said: «I owe a lot to Uncle Nello. He had the approach of a photojournalist at a time when everyone else in Olbia was taking passport photos».
A good photographic shot is sometimes a matter of a moment. Like when, in the middle of the regattas, a submarine came out in front of the archipelago of La Maddalena. «The Americans had always denied the presence of submarines of that type at the Santo Stefano base», continues the collaborator of L'Unione: «Suddenly I saw it emerge in the distance, I asked the person who was accompanying me on the dinghy to accelerate as much as possible, obviously he was much faster than us but thanks to the telephoto lens I was able to shoot».
Among others, the symbolic photo of the video 18/11 on the Cleopatra cyclone made by a collective of journalists for charity. And with this the testimonies of the neighborhoods flooded with mud, the volunteers, the desperation and solidarity of those days. «Olbia has once again proved to be a city of extraordinary generosity».
And in Gallura there is also room for worldly news. Like that time with Jon Bon Jovi. "Two menacing wardrobes approached us and set the record straight, 'no picture for press', and then unexpectedly he struck a pose." The theme was from analog to digital, to the era where everyone is a photographer. But the point is not the means. Seizing the moment that tells the news remains the job of the photojournalist.
