Interview by Mathias Nicola · Spring 2026
You have already seen his work. The fog on the river at the top of this issue, the riders coming out of the dust, the crescent moon caught between two port cranes — all his. For the first of these conversations, the photographer who has been looking at Salto the longest.
There is a particular hour in Salto that most people sleep through. The river has not woken up, the water is flat enough to hold the sky, and a low fog sits on it so thickly that a fisherman twenty metres out becomes a silhouette. Marcelo Cattani is usually already there when it happens.
Look through his pictures in one sitting and a place assembles itself. The Río Uruguay in every mood: red at sunset, violet at dusk, white with fog at six in the morning. The old port cranes, which he keeps returning to, once with a crescent moon hung exactly between their arms. Tropillas of horses driven down a dirt road into the light. Gauchos at last sun. Hands holding a basket of dark grapes at harvest. A lapacho in full pink flower against the water, azaleas along a path, orange blossom in close-up. And, because Salto is also a football town, Suárez and Cavani mid-celebration in sky blue.
What the pictures have in common is patience and weather. These are not photographs you get by turning up; they are photographs you get by knowing which month the fog comes, which evening the sky will go that colour over Argentina, and being in position when it does. His colour is warm and unafraid — deep oranges, saturated skies — which is its own argument about the north.
The photographs in this issue are his. What follows is the conversation.
Where do you stand in Salto when you want a picture nobody else has?
Answer to come.
When you go out to photograph the river, what time do you start, and what light are you waiting for?
Answer to come.
Fog over the river runs through your work. Which months, and what has to happen for it to appear?
Answer to come.
Through the viewfinder, what does Salto have that no other town on this river has?
Answer to come.
What does a visitor walk straight past without seeing?
Answer to come.
One photograph that was hard to get. Which one, and why was it hard?
Answer to come.
Has Salto changed in the years you have been photographing it?
Answer to come.
If someone has one day in Salto and a camera, how would you order the day?
Answer to come.
The hot springs are what brings people. But when you want to show Salto, what do you photograph?
Answer to come.
Is there a place in Salto you still have not photographed the way you want to?
Answer to come.
Marcelo Cattani photographs Salto and the Río Uruguay. Where to see and buy his work: to come.