PAMPILONIA
PAMPILONIA
A parte la lotta per la bandiera, sempre un’aria di rissa accompagna le manifestazioni religiose cui partecipano gli uomini. Nel 1948, prima delle elezioni, i padri domenicani portavano l’effige della Madonna di Fatima da un paese all’altro, un vento di miracoli percorreva la Sicilia, promissioni ed offerte piovevano su quella nuova immagine della Madonna, di sordomuti si diceva che ai piedi della Madonna avessero mugolato parole, di paralitici che riuscivano a trascinare passi tra la folla.
A noi di Regalpetra la Madonna giunse dal vicino paese di Castro, i castrensi l’accompagnarono per sette chilometri in processione, alle porte di Regalpetra trovarono i preti la banda e la popolazione, ai regalpetresi dovevano conseganre la Madonna. Ma i castrensi volevano portarla a spalla fin dentro il paese [...].
La zuffa si accese, girandole di bestemmie rutilarono intorno alla celeste effige, i padri levavano alte le mani a placare la tempesta.
Mai la Madonna come in quel giorno è stata bestemmiata dai cittadini di Castro e Regalpetra.Leonardo Sciascia – Le parrocchie di Regalpetra.
FINALLY BACK Medium Format Black and White
Medium format is the way to go, no doubt about it, from medium to Large Format is what I’d love to be involved in 24/7, but there is the commercial work that requests (for my own sake too) to use digital cameras … and we definitely love them, my reliable and sturdy Canon EOS 5D Mark II is my daily workhorse.
Work is what has kept me busy lately, amd away from my blog.
I had to wait till now, a handful of months, to be able to detach from my daily working routine to be able to leave Florence for a couple of days to visit friends, family and snap some shots here and there, breathing life in its multifaceted forms.
Leonessa (Rieti) is a small town of slightly more than 2500 residents, that flourishes in June when the Palio del Velluto takes place. Historically the Palio took place for the first time in the Fifteenth century, precisely on the year 1464, to celebrate the saints Peter and Paul, in 1997 the town decided to bring back to life the historical celebration.
The population seemed to be widely involved in the organization of the event, with figurants and production assistants running all over trying to tune everything according to plans. I had the luck to witness the late afternoon preparation of the second day of the three days fair.
Next year, write it on the agenda, it might be interesting to be there for the night, when food and wine take over and the event is at its peak.
Coming to the photographical details I have always enjoyed shooting street photography in medium format, that means you basically pick up a Twin Lens Reflex, lightweight, relatively small, silent (depending on your model, some produce a cricket sound when you rotate the crank lever) and fast, compared to other medium format systems. In this specific case I have used a Yashica TLR , more compact than other more renowned European rivals of the time (we are talking here about the 50′s or 60′s, depending on which model you refer to) the Yashica 635 I used for the feaured images was introduced on the market in 1958.
I am somehow a nostalgic image maker, I adore developing my own negatives and struggle with the limitaltions and abstractions that black and white photography requires.
ARCHIVE – Marrakech – part 8 – more Morocco please
No shooting any more, at least not with the same drive, it’s not time, not anymore, these are the last hours in Marrakech and it really feels like it’s time to go, probably to come back and develop what we have just started.
There is not much of a difference between traveling as a tourist and traveling for work, every trip can turn into the same thing, it’s hard to intercept darts of life, the stream of it flows through your hands and it’s hard to grasp it, your expectations might distort your vision and viceversa, I tried to leave it to the camera.
Read reality after, I am looking forward to see the results, to see what will I be able to deduce from the images, those 3 degrees of separation from the world that Ralph Gibson lectures about his photography: scale, two dimensions and color. Three steps away from reality.
I love this alchemy.
ARCHIVE – Marrakech – part 1
“Senor, Saib, Mister, Monsieur, Italiano? Bonasera, tajinacaftanbabouche good prix … please please …
as you run away from the seller that tries to bring you in his little hole in the Suq, a few steps
“Halohalo halo cette ete la meilleur cousine de Marrakech, le prix excellente senor senor? Espanol? Italian?”
“madame madame madame la decoration pour la main oui oui tres belle gratis pour vou pour le traditionel berber … 400 dinar … ‘fanculo”
“beeeeeep beeeeeep beeeeeep beeeeeeep beeeeeeeeeep wrooooooooom wrooooooom wrooooooooom”
“mais non mais non pour la place cette direction not there otra parte … fanculochisenefregadellapiazza”
this is a total disaster, tourists it’s all tourists.
It’s like home, but on the other side.
Imagine being home, in Florence, and being a tourist, it gets boring in a few hours. The awe is washed away in a few steps, the city essence is the vitality of the little shops, that are unfortunately not interesting hence are selling mostly to tourists and have totally changed their line of products in a selection of real rubbish, what you might find on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles or in the Mercato di San Lorenzo in Florence.
In Marrakech is impossible to walk look or even stop in a street without being harassed by a cloud of vendors that will try to sell you everything, from their goods to what the neighbour is selling.
To be in this place you have to be like a French or British colonizer, pretend to be home and behave accordingly, but then the question is … why are you travelling?
Why, as tourists, we have spread all over the world, exporting problems and crisis we had at home and forcing the world to close down its doors?
Tourists have outnumbered locals, forcing them to migrate towards our countries, now we feel the same inadequacy at home and in any other place we might travel to.
Locals are selling their houses at prices tha can compete in the globalized real estate market, riads are owned by nostalgic persons that have experienced the real Morocco, many years ago, when coming here was not through a low cost flying company.
The medina is for sale, place your bid.