Where the Adriatic and the Ionian meet, at Uli Weber’s retreat
Photographing Italia bathed in moonlight: this is the latest project by the ‘gentleman of light’, who, from his home in Salento, in Santa Maria di Leuca, reflects on a lifetime of photography.
Looking at him, one might be tempted to imagine him as having been born somewhere between Chelsea and Belgravia, with a penchant for bespoke jackets and the ease of someone who moves from a Christie’s auction room to a lunch in Mayfair without ever loosening his tie. With his measured manner, dry wit and typically British understatement, Uli Weber perfectly embodies a certain idea of the gentleman photographer of England. And yet he is German through and through: born in Ulm, shaped by that Central European discipline which can still be sensed today in the composition of his images.
When we meet for the first time, he turns up in one of his two classic cars, a rare 1966 Mercedes-Benz 300 SE Cabrio. He’s wearing a white shirt under a light trench coat. The first thing he notices is the way I’m looking at the crimson red leather interior. He gives a faintly smug smile. ‘It’s just been restored. The red leather is its hallmark. And probably my most expensive indulgence too,’ he says.
Weber has an unbridled passion for Italia, which for him is not so much a summer destination as a veritable aesthetic obsession, to the extent that it has led him to put down roots in Salento. In Italia, he has exhibited from north to south, from Milan to Palermo, via Venice, Rome and Lecce. His most recent book, *i* *Il Mezzogiorno* */i*, is in fact entirely dedicated to our country. On a bright morning, feeling more like spring than summer, he opens the doors of his home in Santa Maria di Leuca to me, the southernmost tip of Puglia where the Adriatic and the Ionian Seas meet almost seamlessly. Here, far from the London photography studios and the frenetic pace of Milan – the two cities where he lives for the rest of the year – Weber reveals a more private side of himself: more relaxed, more unpretentious.
As soon as you step through the threshold of his home-studio, the visual impact is striking: highly polished dark marble, raspberry-coloured wallpaper, and objects that strike a balance between Mediterranean flair and Teutonic rigour. On the walls hang his fine-art prints dedicated to Irezumi, the ancient Japanese art of tattooing that transforms bodies into vast canvases brimming with symbols, colours and stories. Everything in Weber’s home seems to speak the language of his photographs: sophisticated, sensual, yet always meticulous in its detail. It is no surprise, then, that his style has been honed within the hyper-controlled world of international fashion publishing, between London and New York, whilst working for Vogue America, under the guidance of Anna Wintour. His work has been exhibited at institutions such as the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne and the Saatchi Gallery in London. But to truly understand him, one must start at the beginning, with those projects that defined his stylistic signature.
‘The first books I produced were very British. Portraits featured almost exclusively British figures: Jeremy Irons, Hugh Grant, Eddie Redmayne, Kate Moss, Keira Knightley, Sting, Daniel Radcliffe… Then came GoodwoodRevival, which is probably the most British project I’ve ever undertaken, and finally The Allure of Horses, conceived as a tribute to the British equestrian world. The British adore these animals; it’s simply part of their DNA.” Speaking of Goodwood Revival, now in its third edition, the project is proof that, in photography, time is not necessarily synonymous with quality. In fact, it came about spontaneously during the years when Weber was working for Tatler, a staple of the British upper class: just three days, a total immersion in the impeccable and theatrical microcosm of Goodwood, in the county of West Sussex, in the south of England. The magazine sent him to photograph Lord March, now the Duke of Richmond, host of the famous Goodwood Revival motoring festival, for a feature article.
