Sicilian cities decay in the most graceful and beautiful way imaginable. I had such an incredible time roaming the back streets of Siracusa and Palermo, especially late in the day when the shadows became deep and the textures of the buildings stood out in high relief. This dog was mellow and very friendly. I have no idea why he was wearing the muzzle, maybe he just thought it made him look tough.

Try clicking on these images, I think it is worth seeing them larger.

The photos from Sicily are coming along nicely. I have finished developing film and I am now scanning, processing, and beginning to think about editing. Editing is definitely going to be a big challenge for me… when I left for Sicily, I had no idea where the project was headed and my focus was a bit scattered. Now I have at least 30-40 photographs that I like, but I know that a lot of them will not make the final cut as I try to put together the story. At least when I am able to continue the project (hopefully next spring, although not in Sicily), I will have a better idea of what to look for.

I need to get a first cut ready soon, because Platinum/Palladium printing begins next week. I’ve ordered all of the necessary chemicals and equipment and am doing a run-through with my professor on Tuesday. I’m sure my first few attempts will be pretty miserable, but I’ll be posting them anyway!

One of my favorite side trips while in Sicily was to the necropolis of Pantalica. Sometime around 1000 BCE, thousands of tombs were carved into the walls of a deep gorge running through the hills of eastern Sicily. It is now a protected national park.

The guidebook was unclear on specifics, but it seemed like it would be about an hour on the bus to Sortino, plus another hour to walk to the park. I packed food and water accordingly, knowing that it would be a hot day.

Three hours after leaving Sortino on foot, I finally arrived at Pantalica. It had been a difficult hike, with lots of hills and valleys along the way. There had been nowhere to get water once I left town, so I was already running low. I stopped for a quick lunch when I got to the entrance of the park and then descended into the gorge. Steps had been carved directly into the rock, worn away from thousands of years of use. Thousands of tombs and larger caves dotted the sides of the cliffs. It was a truly awe-inspiring and humbling moment.

I didn’t get to explore as much as I wanted because of the water situation; I had to turn back and head into town after only about ninety minutes in the gorge. I ran out of water about half-way back to town and dragged myself the rest of the way. I arrived in Sortino exhausted, dehydrated, and covered in dust from head to toe, but extremely satisfied with the day’s adventure.

This trip reinforced two things I think I have always known, but never really solidified in my mind. The first is that I am a desert person. I love the climate of the desert, I love the landscape, I love the vast amount of space between one place and the next. I attribute this at least partially to the time I spent growing up in Joshua Tree, and I am going to continue this series of photographs in southern California and Baja Mexico next year.

The second thing that was reinforced for me on this trip is the fact that I am a wanderer, to an extreme degree. I was happiest when I was out climbing mountains, hiking long distances, getting out and away from the city. This, too, I attribute to growing up in Joshua Tree. I had to walk for miles to get to school, to visit friends, or even just to go to the store. My hours of wandering back then gave me the chance to explore the world, and I think that I got a chance to revisit that feeling of discovery in Sicily.

A few hours alone in the desert gave me the chance to concentrate and really engage the visual side of my brain. This is not something that is instantaneous or even easy for me; I am easily distracted and it usually takes me a little while to switch gears. This is especially obvious in my contact sheets from that day; the first roll is so-so, and the fourth is a bit weak again because I was getting tired. But the two contact sheets in the middle are full of visual ideas that feel fresh and new to me. Having that time to really focus and let the landscape sink in had a tremendous impact on the quality of my work that day.

My wife’s aunt and uncle live on a farm in a little town about an hour outside of Palermo. This is the view I saw out the window every morning when I woke up.

I’ve finally got enough film from the trip developed and scanned to choose a few photos for the website. I still haven’t gotten to the film from Pantalica, a giant necropolis outside of Siracusa where I think I took my best photos. These are from Monreale and Monte Pellegrino, just outside of Palermo.

People insist that I will like dancing if I just give it a try. Or cilantro. “How could anyone hate cilantro?”, they ask. I say, at 31 years old, there are a few things I do know: I don’t like to dance, I don’t like cilantro, and I prefer to photograph landscapes. So this is what you get when a landscape photographer takes a self portrait.

This photograph is pretty decent from a technical perspective. It’s well exposed and everything is in focus. The composition is classically pleasing and there is a nice sense of light in the image. And I absolutely hate it.

“picturesque |ˌpik ch əˈresk|
adjective
visually attractive, esp. in a quaint or pretty style : the picturesque covered bridges of New England.”

At this point, I have a pretty good sense of how to use my camera. I know how to pull a composition together. But this photograph honestly belongs in a kiosk at the mall. I have no use for picturesque.

I guess it’s good to know what you don’t like, though, right? I feel like the more pictures I take, the closer I am to figuring out what I am actually looking for. I am trying to create a world, and within that world, a series of stories. I think it’s fine if that world is a bit romantic and exaggerated; that’s part of the point. But it’s dangerous to get too carried away with those elements and forget about the other things about my photographs that excite me. A landscape needs to be a little bit mysterious, maybe even scary. There need to be hints as to the reasons why the landscape is the way it is. And there need to be questions that remain unanswered.

In this case, I feel like I’ve wandered into a hidden valley in the English countryside and I’m about to be introduced to a bunch of magical faeries. Ugh.

Can you tell that I can’t get enough of this place?

I was looking at this photograph yesterday when I made a connection between the photographs I am currently taking and an experience I had growing up. When I was young, I spent summers living with my great-grandmother in rural New Jersey. My grandma was a gloomy woman, and her house had suffered from years of neglect. I spent my days there practically alone, reading dusty books that hadn’t been off the shelf in ages, exploring the contents of her musty basement, and playing in the wildly overgrown back yard. Her house was literally being swallowed up by the earth.

I think these memories have been lurking in my subconscious since I was a kid, and are now coming out in the photographs I take. I kind of like the idea, anyway.

I don’t know if it’s the promise I made to myself to take more pictures or just the weather, but I made it to Prospect Park to take pictures twice last week, and even went to Central Park on Saturday. In general I think Central Park is too crowded and the landscape views are a bit claustrophobic. Of the three rolls of 120 I shot last week, the photos from Prospect Park are looking much better.

While on one of my walks through through the park, I decided to take a path I’d never seen before and discovered the secluded Vale of Cashmere. It’s hard for me to believe that I’ve been going to the park for seven years now and never discovered this beautiful area (see the photograph from the post below). It’s nestled high up on a hill above Grand Army Plaza, full of birds and squirrels and rabbits, and men hiding in the bushes (oh hey there!). I later learned of the Vale’s somewhat checkered past, known as a cruising and drug spot as well as the site of some anti-gay attacks and at least one murder.

I’m not entirely sure, but I think the perceived possibility of danger in the area makes it even more attractive to me. I will definitely be going back, although I’m wondering if going with a buddy might be a good idea.

Thanks for your interest in my “Taking a Picture” series. Just as a note, I have continued improving my digital workflow and some of these notes are now out-of-date. Feel free to drop a line in the comments or contact me directly if you would like more information on my photographic workflow.

As an experiment, I am posting this example as a video. Feel free to ask for clarification in the comments if there’s anything in particular that you want to know more about. The embedded version is pretty small; click here for a slightly larger streaming version on Vimeo.com, or download a larger version directly from my server.

This series of blog posts follows the process of creating an image from the beginning through to the final print. When I’m done, I’m going to give the print to someone who has commented on one of the posts along the way.

Click here to read other posts in this series.