Dreary Town

5 min read by Enrico Doria.
Published on . Updated on .
Arriving at each new city, the traveler finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places.

This photo essay is inspired by the book Invisible Cities.

Here, I am expressing the emotion of the impersonal places, built with cold regularity, sometimes in contrast with surroundings.

In those spaces, one can become uncertain of where they are, unable to clearly see a path forward, past erased.


The essay spans four years in the making. Some of these years I lived in South Africa and Tunisia, others were spent in Europe. Whenever I travel, I endeavour to expand my Dreary Town project with new images.

Holga and Lubitel are my preferred cameras. The results they give are often unpredictable. I also enjoy waiting to see my photographs.

Johannesburg, 2015
Johannesburg, 2015
Basel, 2018
Milano, 2014
Copenhagen, 2017
Milano, 2014
Pavia, 2014
Durban, 2015
Johannesburg, 2015
Palermo, 2016
Tunisia, 2017
Trapani, 2013
Trapani, 2013
Pavia, 2017
Berlin, 2014