People and Place: Assignment 4: A sense of place

The brief for assignment 4 asks to imagine to be on an assignment for an intelligent, thoughtful travel publication (not tourism promotion) that is demanding a considered, in-depth treatment.
I have to produce sufficient images on a specific location to fill six pages.
This would mean about six final images as chosen, but at least twice this number of good, publishable images from which to make the final selection.
Decide on a place that I know well, or are prepared to take the time to know well, and have sufficient access to in order to complete a strong selection of a dozen images.
It could be a town, a village, the borough of a city, or any area that can be define well enough aiming to show the character of the place and of the people who live there with as much visual variety as possible. ‘Variety’ should include a variety of subject matter and of scale.
Once the photography is completed, I am supposed to write a short assessment in my learning log of:
1. what I set out to achieve, including a description of how I see the essential character of the place
2. how well I think I succeeded, including opportunities that were not available because of lack of time or access
3. how I might have approached the assignment if I had simply been taking photographs with no end-result in mind (meaning an article to be published).

1. My main objective with this assignment is to show the character of a place.
I hope I was able to observe and reflect in my photography the area in an in-depth and thoughtful way and also try to avoid the obvious touristy pictures that are often associated with this region.
The subject for this assignment, “The Place”, is Romagna region.
Romagna is an Italian historical region that approximately corresponds to the south-eastern portion of present-day Emilia-Romagna.
The region's major cities include Cesena, Faenza, Forlì, Imola, Ravenna, Rimini and City of San Marino (San Marino is a landlocked state inside the Romagna historical region).
The diversity between the mountains and sea offers Romagna's visitors breathtaking views, in addition to beauty for both the eyes and spirit, with a mixture of the earthy colours, the aromas and the fresh sea air.
Not to mention that Romagna is a hotbed for music, cinema and art appreciated nationally and internationally.
Many who love the combination of sun, sea and entertainment choose the Romagna Riviera.
It possesses the longest beach in Europe, and is where visitors flock to enjoy its sport offerings and leisure facilities.
Towns such as Rimini, Riccione and Cattolica are highly-outfitted for touristic reception, emphasising relaxation and fun.
This is the land of Giovanni Pascoli’s poetry, as well as Federico Fellini’s unmistakable cinema - a director who became a legend through his many masterpieces that come to life in this, his native region.
In Romagna, one can enjoy amazing views anywhere, and the list of places to choose from is endless.

2. Having selected a bounded location for this assignment, the next step was to take photographs.
Over a period of 6 days I completed 8 separate photographic sessions in Romagna.
From this, I established a group of 20 or so images that I then proceeded to refine further.
This led to the 12 photographs that I am presenting here.
I am reasonably comfortable that with my shots I have achieved the aim of establishing the feel of the "place".
One of the problems with the assignment was that it was pre-season and with that not that many people were around.
Tourist season begin in July and most Italians get active during their summer holidays which last from the end of June to the middle of August.
That leaves the whole set of pictures with a little lonely touch to them.
Probably, this is one thing that I would like to change if I had more time.
Photographically, the challenge was to capture the character, but also diversity of the region in 6 individual photographs.
I could have focussed on a single element of the region (housing, entertainment, monumental buildings, street life), however, I felt this would have failed to meet the brief for the assignment.
As a result, I am presenting 6 images that together are supposed to capture a sense of place and the people that inhabit it.
6 photographs is clearly too few and, if I was not working specifically to this brief, I would have submitted far more.
Indeed I could have happily created a book with the images captured and may yet do so for my own interest.
With a larger set I could have presented a much broader sense of the place.

3. Franky speaking, I have to admit that if I had simply been taking photographs with no end-result in mind, I probably had come to more or less the same pictures, as I want to have a structure behind the pictures I take.
Trying to think how people that don't know Romagna would like to see it helps to get meaningful series of pictures and the requirement to produce an article has forced me to think more and shoot material that can be used to illustrate the region in a cohesive way, but still, I do not think the result would have been drastically different.

The first 6 shots are the images I chose as final, the following are my second choice.

Image 1.