Black and White Part IIWell, at last I'm running out of pictures. The python has finally digested the pig. It took three weeks to shoot them and eight weeks to figure out what to do with them. Whew!! This is the second half of the Black and White images. It's all about the temples and most of them you've seen in color. They just make great B&Ws. The usual format- first a sample, then a slide show. I've just about got the website updated. I split Italy into three different regions, since Sicily now overwhelmes everything else. I also put a gallery of doors and windows from Italy under the Architecture tab. Anyway, you can look at pkkelly.zenfolio.com and see what, in my judgement, someone might want to hang on her wall. See what you think. I'm open to suggestions. Finally I just want to say how much fun it has been taking all of you around Sicily. And I'm so very gratified by the response to the images. Everyone is either very kind or in fact quite accomplished and discerning art critics. I prefer to believe the latter.
Black and WhiteI've aspired to improve my black and white photography for a few years now. I did not, on this trip, go out with this type of photography in mind, but I did try to keep an eye out for opportunities. These last two posts will be all black and white. I'm including a link to my 500px account. It is my primary picture sharing site and the easiest way for you to view the best of the images I've posted on the blog. Here's the link: https://500px.com/p/pkkelly?view=galleries I will soon be putting some images from the trip on this website, of course, and you can always access them through the links I've sent or just typing in pkkelly.zenfolio.com. Give me another week to get everything up. I need to let everything rest for a bit. So here they come, no particular order. Click on the last image to see a slide show with more.
Click on the image below for more.
PictorialsThis post is mostly just pictures. That's because I've run out of story but I still have pictures left. You have only to endure a few more posts. Well, maybe three, counting this one. I'm calling this post "pictorials" because there's no travel theme. These are from all over the island, anytime I saw something that might look good hanging on a wall. Or maybe I just thought was cute. Some appear to be duplicates but I'm still undecided about some of them. I wish I could put a "like" button on each image. Then everybody could vote. Overall the images seem to have been well received and I'm very grateful for everyone's kindness. I'll just load some of these up and the last one will be a slide show with more, plus a second slide show below that with just doors and windows.
Back to BrucoliOn Tuesday May 17th we arrived back at Diana's mid afternoon. It's still hard for us as Americans to get used to how compact everything is in Europe. I had a sunrise shoot in Agrigento, a morning shoot in Enna and Piazza Armerina, stopped six times for pictures of Mt. Etna, and had a glass of wine in my hand at Diana's by 3 PM. I did, of course, start all this at 4:30 AM. But still, whew! The entire circuit of the island took nine days. We had a great time debriefing Diana and catching up with her and Giovanni. They had spent most of the time we were gone getting the boat ship shape for the summer so it's a good thing we left town. We might have found ourselves pressed into the service of the British Navy (Sicilian Branch). Dinner was in Brucoli with Joanne and Larry. I'm posting their picture again so I can give them a proper introduction. I did finally figure out my captioning problem with the blog, as you can see by hovering over their image. But I'm not going back and adding captions to all the pictures. Not today anyway.
We had scheduled all of Wednesday May 18th to catch our breath and pack. And get started on this blog. I also took the opportunity to get a few more shots. Okay, a few hundred more shots. The pictures on this post will be mostly from the immediate vicinity of Diana's. The majority are from her garden or the rocky beach in front of her house and Mt Etna manages to get into several of them. In the fourteen days we spent there the mountain offered several decent photo opportunities. The first two below are interesting because they show what an eruption of Mt Etna looked like while we were there. The second image with the helicopter was taken exactly forty minutes after the first one.
Anybody looking for a nice used castle? "Needs work. Great view!"
Below are two images that were not taken near Brucoli. The town is Castiglione. This is one of the towns where we were denied access due to the big bike race. I got these on an unauthorized stop and I think I actually got better shots from this spot than I would have gotten from the town itself.
I had a decent little shoot down on the rocks the morning of May 19th, the day we left. In fact I was having so much fun I tried throwing a tantrum so I wouldn't have to leave but Diana wouldn't defend me. She and Jeanne Marie dragged me off the beach together.
All I need in the images below is a sailboat. Diana, don't you and Giovanni want a sailboat? They're really cool and don't use nearly as much diesel fuel.
Slide show next with more pictures.
Enna and Piazza ArmerinaAs soon as the morning shoot in Agrigento was finished we hit the road eastbound, back to Diana and Giovanni's. It was only two hours to go straight there but we wanted to make a couple of side trips. Plus I knew we would have good views of Mt Etna on the drive and might want to stop for a picture. Ya think? First was the hilltop town of Enna. We'd driven past it in 2012 and couldn't stop that time so we wanted to check it out. The other place was Piazza Armerina. We went to Enna first. It's a good size town with a large fortress and I would have liked to have done the tour but we didn't allocate that kind of time. Next trip.
Off the north side of the hilltop we had great views of another town, Calascibetta, pictured below.
It is perched so beautifully on the high point of the town I just had to see the inside. And it is indeed impressive. After visiting a couple of dozen of these big beautiful churches in these little bitty towns we were getting a little cathedral fatigue. But we were very glad we stopped for this one.
It was time to turn back east and head for home. Diana was waiting for us, with a glass of wine ready, and we would join Larry and Joanna (the other Americans) for dinner. Mt. Etna was off our left the rest of the way and we were able to stop for a few shots. Included in the slide show are a few images from 2012. That trip was in late October so you can see how the entire island reverts to earth tones. Not a wildflower in sight. But beautiful all the same.
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