The Temples: Agrigento Part 3Tuesday, May 17th I was up and out about 4:30 to catch the moon setting over the Temple of Hera, the same spot I had used for the eclipse the day before. I again crossed town on the high road because this time I knew what was waiting and I was prepared to spend more time. I would definitely get out of bed that early just to observe this scene, even if I couldn't photograph it.
I then headed over to the scene of my failure the previous morning. I at least knew my alignment was pretty close. I got something out of this full moon.
In the image above, the sun had just popped above the horizon behind me, lighting up the temple as you see. . But it was evident by this point that I was too far to the right. The moon would go down to the right of the temple. So I threw my gear in the car and went down the hill one switchback and set up again. This was the result.
And that was it for Agrigento. Time to pack the car and head east. A few pictures from the 2012 trip are in the slide show below.
The Temples: Agrigento Part 2As soon as we could see that the eclipse was done we proceeded to a spot that I had hoped might make an early morning shot. I got this image.
The day's work yielded these:
The primary target was the Temple of Hercules. We had set up about 500 yards west of the park so it was the closest and I knew from my scouting trip I could get a clear shot at it. I would evaluate the possibility of getting another of the temples after I saw where the moon actually came up. Here's what I got right at moonrise.
The Temples: Agrigento Part 1After the sunset shoot at Selinunte we had to drive back to Trapani to our AirBnb. We got up on Sunday June 15 and headed to the Cathedral for Mass. Very nice and formal without being a high Mass. Hearing the Mass in Italian these three weeks sends us back to the good old days when it was in Latin. The cathedral also houses the shrine of The Madonna of Trapani, which we visited. This shrine is the home of a marble carving of Our Lady which is reputed to have been carved by Nino Pisano. It is actually a replacement of a much older statue, as veneration of Our Lady of Trapani began in the 3rd century.
We sat in her chapel for maybe thirty minutes and watched a steady stream of locals, lots of families with children, many of them bringing flowers, come in to ask a blessing.
The Valley of the Temples is sited on a high bluff a short distance from the sea. It is oriented east and west with the Temple of Hera on the east end, the temple of Concordia in the middle, and the temple of Hercules on the west end. There are remains of various other temples scattered around the site. As soon as we arrived we checked in to our AirBnb which was not only very nice but in the perfect location. It was literally a short walk to the west portal of the Valley of the Temples. Jeanne Marie hit another home run finding this place. So let's get everyone introduced. First, is Hera. I believe most of what you see here has been standing all these centuries. Hera can be confusing because it looks so different from various angles.
Next is the remnant of the Temple of Gemini (The Twins Pollux and Castor). It has become a kind of symbol for the whole valley.
Then there's Hercules. This temple had fallen into rubble and was reassembled. it was only 150 yards from our quarters.
While waiting to cross the street this lovely young lady signaled she wanted her picture taken so I grabbed this as the car pulled away. These Sicilian kids sure seem to enjoy life.
And then we had to chase the rising full moon.
This being our first day in the area we were still getting the lay of the land and trying to find not just access but an acceptable view. We grabbed the above from somebody's driveway. Below is Hercules again. Then we had to get to bed so we could get up at 3:30 for the lunar eclipse.
Next morning we took the high road across town and were given the nice little scene below. The picture does not do it justice. I can see why the ancients were brought to their knees to pray when greeted with a scene like this. And you can see that the eclipse was starting.
We got to the designated spot and then just had to watch the eclipse progress and wait for the moon to descend into the frame with the Temple of Hera. But as you can see in the image below, in which I overexposed the moon, the weather gods had a trick in mind. The clouds were already starting to obscure the moon.
We were still getting pretty good views of the moon until just before it reached the camera's field of view. The image below is actually two images stitched together in Photoshop. It is what we saw, but not in a single frame.
Then below is a few minutes later. This is a single frame but I had to tease out the moon with Photoshop. We couldn't actually see it with the naked eye at that point. The clouds might not have been the only factor. The moon was getting darker and the sky was getting lighter. The eastern sky at that point was rather bright.
So I didn't get the picture I wanted but as my shooting buddy Al says, "Don't cry over spilled pixels." Or as I say, "If at first you don't succeed, take a couple thousand more images. Even a blind squirrel eventually finds an acorn." We still had two sunrises, a sunset, a moonrise, and a moon set before we departed the area. Lots of pictures were waiting to be taken. Slide show of this first day below.
The Temples: Love Among the RuinsWe arrived back at the Selinunte archaeological park and started walking the quarter mile up to the main temple of Hera. Sticking out of the trees was the back end of a white limousine-a Bentley or a Rolls. I said to Jeanne Marie, "There's a wedding party here for pictures." And so there was. I'm afraid I acted like a kid in a candy store. It was just too much fun. See what you think.
We and the wedding party had the whole place to ourselves and the light was as beautiful as the bride. I'm just going to run through the whole shoot right here. No need for a slide show at the end. This is the story.
I think she was having fun too.
About here I remembered that I was here to capture the great evening light. I turned around and saw this pile of rubble so I took a picture of it and then went back to the wedding party. It was just tooo much fun.
One more kiss then back in the limo. Just as well. The park was closing in 20 minutes so I had to get what I came here for. Just then I noticed the nearly full moon rising over the temple. As you progress through these images you will see the light get better with each shot. Then go back to the last post and compare them. You will see why photographers love this kind of light.
The entire shoot took one hour fifteen minutes.
The Temples: Segesta and SelinunteSicily has more than its share of ancient archeological sites and the three temple sites in the western part of the island are pretty much untouchable for imparting to us, 2500 years later, the energy and vitality of these people and what their life looked like. The last four days of our road trip was spent seeing and photographing these majestic structures. There was a total lunar eclipse the morning of May 16th and we had arranged our schedule to be in Agrigento for that, hoping for something dramatic. I'll tell you up front it was rather a bust. After all the intense planning, performing all the proscribed sacrifices to all the photography gods, not neglecting the weather gods, it was not to be. The clouds got me. But the gods did give me a few consolations so I came away with something. You can judge how worthwhile. So on Saturday May 14th, first on the agenda is the temple at Segesta. Displaying the Doric style which is the oldest of the three Greek orders, it is the best example of Doric architecture anywhere. It was built about 420 BC but never completed. Very little of the city of Segesta remains, there is an amphitheater at the top of the hill, but the temple sits by itself nestled against a large ravine and the hill you see behind it.
After spending an hour or so shooting the temple we headed south to the next temple complex, Selinunte. But first we had to make a quick side trip to Castelvetrano, the ancestral home of our dear friend, Suzanne Palumbo Tushar. It was just off the highway so we pulled in and went straight to the cathedral. Found it locked but there was a smaller church right next door that was closing in five minutes. So we got a very brief visit. The church had a very unusual carving over the sanctuary.
We then went scouting for a better vantage point to photograph the cathedral. No luck. This is the only town in Sicily with no hills. But we did get an excellent lunch. We found the nearest thing to a New York deli we saw on the whole trip.
Then on to Selinunte. In ancient times this was the largest of the three sites and is the largest archeological site in Europe today. Well over 100,000 people lived inside its walls and it was the western boundary of Magna Gracia. This put them in conflict with the non Greek Sicilians and with Carthage, the superpower of the Mediterranean at that time. It was they who destroyed the city in 409 BC. Today the most intact of the five original temples is the one dedicated to Hera. And it is the only one, in any of the three temple complexes, that visitors are allowed to enter and walk through.
We came across these four young Sicilian gentlemen who insisted that we take their picture. This seems to be a thing with the teenagers here. They just like to have somebody with a real camera take their picture. They all spoke good English so we chatted for awhile.
Then we found a nice bar with a veranda overlooking the sea and killed about an hour with a glass of wine and an Aperol spritz . About seven we headed back up to the temple for the evening shoot. And there the serendipitous photo gods would have a nice little present waiting for me. Click the image below for a slide show of more pictures.
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