'Malta Classic' IGNANT
IGNANT / The Elegance of Malta
WORDS Stephanie Wade
Shooting on film gives Fleming permission to look into this other world, gathering and documenting yet allowing his imagination to flourish. “It’s an invitation to see into a different lifestyle, much like living on prosperous Long Island in 1922,” he says, (referencing the setting of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s iconic novel The Great Gatsby). “It reminds me of the quote by the character Jordan: ‘I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy’.”
In the middle of the Mediterranean Sea between Sicily and the North African coast lies Malta, a tiny archipelago and independent nation abundant in history and culture. It was here that London-based photographer Alex Fleming shot an exclusive photo series for IGNANT, juxtaposing architecture, portraiture, and luxury cars in tribute to a bygone era.
Client | IGNANT
→ Alex Fleming Photographs The Elegance Of Malta
“A man sat on the shore, fishing. Behind him the salt pans glistened, reflecting the buildings in a pinkish hue. I drove from there to Mdina, the old capital, a city bounded by tall bastion fortifications. It was mesmerising to explore the narrow passages, fuelled by fleeting light and long cast shadows from the midday sun. It’s hard not to be captivated by the baroque Catholic Church at its center, and placed there was the Concours d’Elegance. Exquisite automotives pre-dating 1975 were placed uniformly with bustling crowds filtered amongst them. The day passes, the cars are lined up in their paddocks just outside of the city walls. A rich sonance of exhaust fumes, the smell of gasoline upon the nose: they race the roads around the City in fighting spirit.”
