Tucked away on Barbaria delle Tole, a lively street winding through Venice’s historic Castello district, lies a portal to another time. Halfway along this bustling calle, amid mosaicists and luthiers, marbled paper artisans and grocers, a single window captivates the eye, filled with black and white photos of all sizes, all from another era, from another Venice. The window belongs to Archivio Cameraphoto Epoche, a photographic archive of astonishing depth and breadth. More than a collection of images, an epic chronicle of Venice and its denizens.
Housed in a former bakery, the archive teems with photographs capturing everything from the glamorous—Dior’s models and Paul Newman on the Lido’s shores—to the catastrophic, like the Vajont dam disaster. High tides, protests, Carnival celebrations, and even ordinary Venetian life—all are immortalised here. Faces of locals and luminaries leap from the prints, evoking stories that feel both intimate and universal.
Vittorio Pavan: Custodian of Memories
Upon entering, the first thing that captures one’s attention is not the photos themselves but the numbered boxes stacked neatly above a workstation. Each box holds negatives and contact prints—320,000 in total. These fragile fragments of history, dating from the 1940s to the 1980s, tell a story far greater than the sum of their parts, and at least as large as the space Venice occupies in our collective imagination.
But time is relentless, and negatives are perishable, the race against chemical decay having to go through a massive digitalisation. At the heart of this monumental effort is Vittorio Pavan, a quiet, generous man of extraordinary dedication and astounding visual memory. A Venetian by soul and an artwork photographer by trade, Pavan has taken up the noble but daunting mission of preserving these images for posterity, scanning, cataloguing, and restoring the archival legacy of Cameraphoto, the agency he acquired and that once held the pulse of Venetian photojournalism.
Cameraphoto: A Legacy Etched in Silver Halide
The story of Archivio Cameraphoto Epoche begins in 1947 with Dino Jarach, who founded the photojournalism agency initially called Interfoto. By 1958, the agency had rebranded as Cameraphoto and quickly gained acclaim for its compelling reportage of celebrities visiting Venice—artists, actors, and auteurs whose glamour juxtaposed Venice’s decaying grandeur.
When Vittorio Pavan joined in 1973 as a teenager, Cameraphoto had expanded its repertoire to include artwork reproduction and restoration documentation. Over the years, Vittorio became indispensable, mastering large-format optical photography to capture the essence of Venice’s artistic treasures. By 1987, Pavan had assumed ownership, steering Cameraphoto through the changes of a digitalising world.
The Archive’s Role in Venetian Identity
Declared of Exceptional Cultural Interest by the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage in 2010, the archive is much more than a repository of beautiful images. It’s a testament to Venice’s kaleidoscopic existence. Through the lens of Cameraphoto, we glimpse a city where the ephemeral tide of life meets the enduring weight of history.
Thanks to Pavan’s stewardship and vision, these images have transcended the status of mere historical documents to become not just an archive but fine art prints, books and postcards—faithful reproductions of these glimpses, these moments encapsulating Venice’s timeless allure, now here for all to treasure.
So, the next time you wander down Barbaria delle Tole, pause at this time-machine of a shopfront. Peer through the window. You’ll see not just photographs but a universe of stories waiting to be discovered—and a man, Vittorio Pavan, bent over a computer, working to ensure those stories endure.
