Photo Festival of Nature in Argenta and through the Valleys

Would you like to dedicate a long weekend to both photography and environment, you can attend the Foto Festival della Natura • Obiettivo Natura IV in its fourth edition.

The appointment is for April 1st, 2nd and 3rd: destination Argenta and its valleys (i.e. a vast wetlands area), some thirty kilometres from Ferrara.

It is a three-day event dedicated to the mission of capturing with your camera, the charm of lights and water and of documenting the many plant and animal species characteristic of this area of the Parco Regionale del Delta del Po, including Argenta and the Anse Vallive of Ostellato.

It is worth also a visit to the Museo delle Valli d’Argenta, not forgetting the Museo della Bonifica.

From sunrise to sunset. In Oasis

The event opens on April 1st, with the Presentation of the Foto Festival at the Centro Culturale Mercato in Argenta and a speech by Francesco Petretti on dealing with wildlife at the time of the pandemic. The following day it goes on (from dawn to dusk) with technical workshops and excursions in the natural oasis, near the Museo delle Valli area.

Photographic excursions and technical meetings are scheduled for Sunday, too, at Ostellato and the Vallette, then at the Anse Vallive di Portomaggiore – Bacino di Bando.
There are field-classes in photography, held by the biologist and ornithologist Francesco Petretti, the nature photographers Milko Marchetti and Stefano Unterthiner, by Alberto Czajkowski (Canon Italia) and by Sergio Stignani (AFNI – Associazione Fotografi Naturalisti Italiani Emilia-Romagna).

The Foto Festival della Natura • Obiettivo Natura IV is organized by the Comune di Argenta with the Ecomuseo, in collaboration with the Comune of Ostellato, Comune of Portomaggiore, Soelia spa. e Atlantide Soc. Coop. Sociale.

Related events include evenings open to the public (on April 1st and 8th) proposed by AFNI and the photographic exhibition Fauna e paesaggi del Delta del Po (Wildlife and landscapes of the Po Delta), organized by the Circolo Fotografico di Portomaggiore, at the Delizia Estense del Verginese until May 11th.

Foto Festival della Natura • Obiettivo Natura IV, Valli di Argenta ©Sergio Stignani

Photographing is knowledge

The passion for photography is synonymous with curiosity. It means cutting out well-chosen shards of reality and making them available for observers. It presupposes careful research on the subjects and places to explore and photograph.

Whether it’s capturing a breathtaking sunrise and the awakening of nature, the elusive kingfisher or a whiskered tern, that nests between May and June onto lily pads, photographing nature is knowledge.

For the Valleys, photography is also one of the main tools to promote responsible tourism, slow and high-quality tourism.

Foto Festival della Natura • Obiettivo Natura IV, Cassa Campotto, Valli di Argenta ©Sergio Stignani

A special museum

The Valli are a quite peculiar territorial reality, that can be discovered also thanks to a museum system that tells its story, illustrating the themes of the life in the Valli as well as the ones of the land reclamation, including environmental protection activities.

So you can visit the Museo delle Valli d’Argenta and the Museo della Bonifica (the Land Reclamation Museum), which is situated at the Saiarino Pumping Station. Almost like suspended on the water, it is an industrial archaeology museum, where the complex mechanical system of land reclamation of the early 1900s can be seen. It was opened in 1925 and it is at the core of the drainage system of the Reno river. The pump room, in Liberty style, has six pumps (still working), which were the most powerful in Europe when the plant was built. Lastly, the Museo Civico, located in the church of San Domenico, preserves paintings and archaeological finds from the Pieve di San Giorgio area and the excavations in the centre of the town.