Category Archives: Tuscany

MAY 12, 2015

Inside The Light

My eye is dazzled regularly by the Tuscan light. A light that caused us many years ago to name our book on the region; “Tuscany: Inside The Light,” because it so often seemed as if the light was emanating from within the landscape rather than falling on it.

There is something very special in the composition of the soil here which I believe contributes to this light effect, and my reading of it this way. The earth here is not the typical dark earth of many agricultural zones. This earth is known as the Tuscan crete, which is a light toned, clay-like material deposited millions of years ago as sea bottom, and as such it is incredibly nutrient rich, but not dark. I believe that this light toned earth forms a base below the grasses, grains, sunflowers, vineyards, etc, that are part of the landscape here.

This produces a more reflective surface than a dark soil does, and so there is a luminous lift to the light bouncing back from the land, which I believe is what generates the special qualities of Tuscan light. Certainly daily atmospheric conditions emphasize light and color as well, but from my 20 year point of view working here, it is the accumulated resonance of this scattering of the light that accounts for these remarkable and emotional displays.

MAY 9, 2015

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The Jewel

How lucky I was to be out early that day because the world was completely suffused in morning fog. Everything was a blur in the mist and magical to see, or try and see. After about an hour of walking and shooting this gauzy world the sun burned though and lifted some of the ground fog, and for a moment, really, just a moment and then – whoosh – the world was lit.

But that moment between the two was a delicacy that lifted my entire being. What a world we are in, what a magical, remarkable, unexpected jewel of a world!

MAY 7, 2015

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What Catches the Eye

Who knows why any one stops any time, anywhere? Why this trough, which is probably a truck tire track, filled with rain water in a gravel-bedded parking area. But there it is, the puzzle that all photographers deal with all the time. Something catches the eye, with no rational reason for it. Maybe it was the color of the light as the day waned, which, when seen against the new green of the hills at that hour set off the slightly warmer feel of the gravel, or perhaps it was the piece of sky that made its poem in the trough, falling to earth in a way that made me pause. These are the mysteries of this remarkable medium that so many of us are in dialogue with, and that makes it is so compelling.

So the dialogue continues.

MAY 6, 2015

MAY 5, 2015

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Contadini

In Tuscany we live on a working farm, and now (2015) we have been here for a whole year, but back when this ‘every day for a year’ series was begun we were there for only 6 months. We became part of the small community formed by Silvia and Vincenzo, a mid 40’s couple who work the land in the old spirit of the contadini’s of the era of padrones, when the system was not too far removed from the serfdom of the middle ages. There are a few other people right nearby who form this little enclave of about a dozen of us, of which we are the stranieri, outsiders.

Silvia was making pizza in their wood fired outdoor oven, a relic of the 18th century when their house was built.To see them work the oven and how easily they move as a team, including their 10 year old son Giuseppe, who ladled the sauces on each pizza, was a gift, as was the pleasure of devouring the pizzas afterward. All the sauces and meats and cheese came from their farm, and I cannot tell you how sweet and true the flavors were.

This image is merely a description of one step of the process. The cows below sometimes make their way into the pizza too.

ONCE MORE AROUND THE SUN

A photograph every day for a year