Italy’s Po Valley has always held a special place in the heart of London-based photographer Paolo Zerbini. Stretching from the foot of the western Alps to the Adriatic coast, it sits just below the knee of Italy’s boot. A geologically diverse landscape of fertile plains, rolling valleys and river lagoons, it’s an eden for photographers, poets and birdwatchers alike, and the muse of Zerbini’s latest publication, 1/1.

Shot as a homage to the place of his childhood holidays, the new publication tells a personal story of memory and place via 101 polaroid images taken by Zerbini over the course of his one month road trip.

Taking only a handful of shots per day on his beloved Fuji FP-100 –and often in total solitude – the images make up a narrative, a kind of visual ethnography of the landscape and its history, supplemented by three stories written by Zerbini as he passed through the Delta. In them he explores the fantasy and fable that this place has evoked for hundreds of years, the same theatric quality reflected in his photographs of misty woodland and wild coastline. We spoke to him about why he made the trip, his early memories of visiting the area with his aunt and his love of the colour red.

Finn Blythe: What made you want to return to the area you were born and make this book?
Paolo Zernini: This was a project I had in mind for a long time, but it was always put on hold for one reason or another. The whole trip behind this book is closely linked to a friend who had shown me the beauty of the Po Valley years ago. The decision to finally make the project came from a conversation I had with him the night before he went.

FB: For someone who has never visited the area, what make it such an interesting place to take photographs?
PZ: It’s an empty flat space of nothing but fog and mosquitos, yet it’s full of incredible things popping up within the horizon that makes it a wonderful place. It’s empty and vast and full of flavour and ignorance alike. The light reflects in the stagnating ditches and humid air bounces around the rural buildings constructed with cheap cement. Wine is cheap and people are silent, one can really walk for miles undisturbed.

FB: You describe your book as a homage to uniqueness. What makes it unique?PZ: It speaks about a very unique feeling I had never experienced before, and all the photographs and words are filtered through that feeling. It’s something vast and empty and extremely desolate. It’s very different from anything I normally do or have ever done before in terms of aesthetics, it had it’s unique moment in time for me. It’s also been photographed using a kind of film that produces one positive image only. There are 101 images in the book and only 101 books with each one of them holding one of the original photographs on the front cover.

“Wine is cheap and people are silent, one can really walk for miles undisturbed”

FB: What are you earliest memories of growing up in Po valley?
PZ: The hairy legs of my aunt cycling and taking me to the river, and her fear of me falling in. 

FB: Amazing. What can you tell us about the three short stories in the book? What relation do they share with the imagery?
PZ: The stories came as a surprise to me as they were composed in a natural way while travelling and I never intended to publish them. They refer to things that have all happened on the Po Valley or fantasies that this particular place has evoked. They came naturally to me as I was killing time in the evenings while travelling through the river delta. They hold the same direct and simple way of telling stories that belongs to the country side and swamps, but also some surreal elements slipped in that are also very much part of these lands.

FB: Your previous publication, Rough Ride Down South, focuses on themes of identity and place. Has your approach to this new project differed at all? If so, how?
PZ: The approach is the same. It actually speaks about the same place but with very different symbols. Both books aim to create a fluid and distorted map of the land. In the first book I made it by photographing it from distance, in Louisiana, and this time by photographing from very close. All the images are a lot about my inner state more than the actual place or the subjects.

FB: Why do you choose to shoot on polaroid using a Fuji FP-100?
PZ: Firstly, I really love the format and the colours it gives, I always have. And also because it’s a film that is no longer produced, it’s rare, if not impossible to find. There is a Silk version still out in the shops but the kind I have used for this has now been discontinued and even Ebay have run out. The images had to be unique, so no negative is produced. It all made sense to me.

FB: What influences your use of colour, especially red?
PZ: There was a lot of passion in the making of this book, a lot of blood was spilled for it to exist, so red had to come in to it somehow. Plus, quite simply, red is my favourite colour.

See more of Paolo’s work here.