Recently I processed this image from Orvieto, in Umbria (Italy). In the morning the fog was thick. I took advantage of the evocative lighting, and framed an ancient, cobblestone passage by looking (with my camera) through an arch. The result is a composition that takes one to the place, and somehow seems to bring up the smells and feeling of being there.
Related image: Duomo in the Clearing Fog.
Orvieto Passage © Harold Davis
Well, the “first creepiest” room was definitely the one in Orvieto that had a large reproduction of a painting of Death playing chess with his dying victim hung right over the bed. I hung a bedspread over this grotesque art so I wouldn’t see Death peering at me at night from the mirror across the room.
Storm, Trieste © Harold Davis
This room in Trieste is also creepy, more for what is outside the room than the room itself. The room is over-large, tasteless, and grandiose—but on the whole these are venal not mortal sins, and could even be fun, depending on whom one might be sharing the room with.
But I am on the fifth floor (sixth by American reckoning), and it is a long way down to Trieste’s harbor. In the storm the other night, this magnificent old building groaned and rattled. The balconies out the doors provide only a low railing, almost no protection. While potentially dangerous to the lonely and suggestible traveler, this eyrie also provides an enticing perch for photography.
Sailing Yacht A (“Sy A”) is a super yacht belonging to a Russian oligarch that was seized by Italian authorities in Trieste harbor in March, 2022. Sy A remains anchored off Trieste; in the image below it is shown in yesterday’s storm, and in the bottom image today in better weather.
Ghost Ship © Harold Davis
Sailing Yacht A © Harold Davis
A few days ago, my friend Julian and I walked up to the Michelangelo Piazza for a view above Florence. We were welcomed with a display of sun, clouds, rain—and a rainbow.
Some other rainbows: Strasbourg’s Petite France, Paris, Patriarch Grove, Prague, and the Alabama Hills (in the eastern Sierra).
Rainbows always symbolize hope and beauty for me. I feel fortunate to have witnessed so many rainbows—photography is a great enabler of this.
I keep in mind the Ansel Adams dictum that if you don’t go out in the rain you’ll never witness the clearing storm. The same can be said of rainbows.
Rainbow over Florence © Harold Davis
The day dawned with a white-out fog blanketing the Umbrian hill town of Orvieto. I wandered through the maze of ancient, deserted streets and alleys with my camera on the tripod, making images in the evocative light. Rounding a corner onto the Piazza del Duomo, I saw for the first time the sun rising through the fog (my image is below).
Duomo in the Morning Fog © Harold Davis
Later in the morning, Julian and I climbed the many steps to the top of the Torre del Moro. We had this eyrie to ourselves in a world of whiteness, but decided to have patience, and settled in to wait. Over an hour later, after noon, the fog started to break, and when it moved, it moved quickly. I had only a moment or two to capture Duomo in the Clearing Fog (below).
Duomo in the Clearing Fog © Harold Davis
St Patrick’s Well, or Pozzo di San Patrizio, is located in Orvieto, Umbria, Italy. There are 248 steps down (and up). The view in my image is looking up at the daylight at the top of the well. The whole thing is like a tower that goes down into the ground, rather than standing above it. The design uses a double spiral stair, with 70 windows from the stair into the shaft of the well. The point of this double spiral was to allow mules to go down and fill vessels and come back up the second spiral without any traffic jams. I sure felt like a mule going down and then up this structure with my friend Julian!
St Patrick’s Well © Harold Davis
St Patrick’s Well was built on orders from Pope Clement VII who had taken refuge at Orvieto during the sack of Rome in 1527 by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. The Pope wanted to make sure there would be enough water in event of a siege.
The rather odd name for the well was inspired by St Patrick’s Purgatory in Ireland. This is a cave supposedly shown St Patrick by Christ that is said to go down all the way to purgatory (and, yes, climbing out of the well with my camera gear did indeed feel purgatorial!).
From a photographic viewpoint, I am interested in the feeling of light in my image, considering how dark it was down there at the bottom of the well (I had to use my headlamp to see what I was doing with the camera).
I’m beyond excited about heading back to Europe in a few days for an extensive photography trip that will include one of my favorite cities, Venice. May the photographic stars, weather Gods, and assorted creative juices (all of which combine to be “the Force”) be with me!
Venice Canal © Harold Davis
California Live Oak © Harold Davis
Here are two images from my files. California Live Oak (above) is from 2019, photographed in Walnut Creek, California.
Arcade, Trapani (below) is from November, 2018, photographed in Trapani, a seaport on the western coast of Sicily, Italy.
Arcade, Trapani © Harold Davis
Wandering through the Sicilian village of Cefalu, I made my way to the harbor jetty. Looking back at the whitewashed village, it was clear that from a monochromatic perspective, the contrast between the white buildings and the black headland behind them was very interesting. I made a series of bracketed exposures that would enable me to take advantage of this contrast once I had converted the photo to black and white.
Cefalu © Harold Davis
Nikon D850, 44mm, 6 Exposures at f/29 and ISO 64, shutter speeds ranging from 1/10 to 1/160 of a second, tripod mounted; processed to monochrome using Nik HDR Efex Pro.
Related story: Accordion Player.
On my way into Trapani, a refugee from my hotel in Palermo, I pulled the car over to stop at a MacDonald’s on the outskirts of town to take advantage of their more-or-less public bathrooms. As those who are strangers in a strange land and at home abroad know, it is wise, as my Mom used to put it, to “Never miss a chance to p*ss”—and American chain stores tend to have the best readily available facilities.
Trapani is a dusty, mostly decaying seaport and provincial capital on the western end of Sicily. The population is about 70,000, with not much in the way of industry beyond fishing, canning the fish, and salt harvesting. It’s also an important ferry port, with routes to the Egadi Islands, Sardinia, Tunisia, Naples, and beyond. Tourism is of course also a significant revenue source, although tourists were not much in evidence in November despite the blue skies and wonderful, warm weather.
The city dates back to antiquity, when it was established by the Greeks as the port for nearby Erice, which perches on a mountain above Trapani (more on Erice in a future story). The Carthaginians conquered Trapani, and then were forced to cede it to the Romans in 241 BC, following the First Punic War. Succeeding rulers included Vandals, Ostrogoths, Byzantium, Arabs, and the Normans; the city flourished under the Normans as one of the primary Mediterranean ports used by the crusades.
In modern times, the elegant buildings along the vast, sickle-shaped harbor fell into various states of disrepair. I parked my car in the central town square, and enjoyed the long walk out to the end of the fortified jetty along the seafront esplanade, through back alleys, narrow winding labyrinthine streets, and elegant interior streets, many closed to vehicular traffic.
Via Garibaldi 71, Trapani © Harold Davis
Many of the buildings in Trapani are designed around an interior courtyard that is barely seen from outside. The entrances to this interior space can be formal, and grand, as the intricately detailed door shown in the accompanying photo. This image reminds me of an entrance to a secret garden: the magic that is inside is unknown, and perhaps in some sense unknowable.
Related story: Palazzo Berardi Ferro, Trapani.
Corleone is a town in central Sicily. Historically, many mafia bosses have come from Corleone. The anti-Mafia archive and museum is housed in Corleone (unfortunately not open when we visited).
In fiction, Corleone is the birthplace of Vito Corleone in the Godfather novel and movies. However, the scenes in the Godfather trilogy purportedly filmed in Corleone were actually filmed in other Sicilian locations.
Corleone © Harold Davis
Don Harold in Corleone (photo by Ann with my iPhone)
Composition in photography is in large part about bringing an ordered visual experience to the chaotic reality of our world. This means finding, and emphasizing, patterns: patterns that are big, like the apartment buildings of outer Palermo from above, and patterns that are small, like the scraped-away layers of poster advertising on a wall in downtown Palermo.
Apartment Buildings, Palermo © Harold Davis
Wall, Palermo © Harold Davis
Winding down the steep, narrow streets of the medieval Sicilian town of Cefalu towards the seaward ramparts, I could hear faintly some rather delicious accordion music. Getting closer, he sat high up on the seawall, playing with some virtuosity. I made my way up.
Accordion Player, Cefalu © Harold Davis
Surf lapped at the base of the old walls, clouds sailed overhead, and a strong wind blew as I listened to the minor-key harmonies of the accordion. I was reminded of the words of the sad and beautiful Joni Mitchell song For Free:
I slept last night in a good hotel
I went shopping today for jewels
The wind rushed around in the dirty town
And the children let out from the schools
I was standing on a noisy corner
Waiting for the walking green
Across the street he stood
And he played real good
On his clarinet for free
Not quite the same circumstances, but the same idea. I put a one Euro coin on the pavement next to him, and he smiled acknowledgment, and kept on playing. I wanted to give him the money before asking to take his photo, so he could say “no” to the photo if he wanted without worrying about monetary consequences.
When I asked if I could take his photo, he said “sure,” and stopped playing for a moment. I showed him the image on the LCD. He said Grazie mille, and went back to his accordion and his sad, sweet tunes.
I don’t get to use the word syncretic nearly as much as I’d like. Last appearing in this blog to describe the quasi-official mix of Shintoism and Buddhism in Japan, I am happy to trot out syncretic again in Palermo, Sicily.
Domes, Palermo Cathedral © Harold Davis
My definition of “syncretic” is that the word describes the situation when multiple belief systems that are manifestly, and on their face, contradictory live together in perfect harmony. Hence, Shintoism and Buddhism. In Sicily, particularly Palermo, syncretic well describes the historical and architectural heritage that is a blend of Islam, Byzantium, and the Norman strain of Catholicism.
I had a great time today on a self-guided photo walking tour of the syncretic neighborhoods of central Palermo; tired and footsore at the end I stopped at a student hangout joint for an inexpensive grilled steak with potatoes.
Yesterday to get away from the madness at the hotel, I got up early, had a quick breakfast, made my way out the barricades, and drove to Trapani, an old port city on the western tip of Sicily.
Palazzo Berardo Ferro, Trapani © Harold Davis
In Trapani I parked, and walked through the oldest part of the city to the tower guarding the harbor, photographing along the way. I had lunch, a delicious stuffed calamari and insalata mixta. On my return walk to the car, I stopped to photograph the entrance to this historic Palazzo. Like most formal architecture around here, it is organized around an arcaded central courtyard. The Palazzo is now taken up with several pensiones (small B&B hotels), and probably some residential apartments as well.
