Blog Archives

27: fisherman, sciacca

28 Faces, day 27

Black and white just brings out the personality more.
– Peter Lindburg

Sciacca, Sicily
photographed 9.5.2022

10: shrimp man, sciacca

28 Faces, day  10

There is no such thing as inaccuracy in a photograph. All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.
-Richard Avedon

Sicacca, Sicily
photographed 9.5.2022

shrimp: the handoff

(First of all: do not be alarmed. So far all my Sicilian photos have been in black and white. But in fairness to the colorful locations and to practice more with color images, I’m going to post something different for the new few days.)

If you’d be wondering what it looked like at the docks when the shrimp boats returned, this is it.

Porto di Sciacca
Sciacca, Sicily
photographed 9.5.2022

net repairs

In addition to selling fish from their boats, the fishermen use their afternoon at the docks to repair their nets. They’ll be heading out again in a few hours, and make good use of every minute.

I can get a giant tangle in thread just attempting to sew on a button. Watching these two doing something more complicated and much more fiscally important than fixing a button made me feel really quite inadequate in sweing-needle-based activities.

Sciacca, Sicily
photographed 9.5.2022

this felt like a secret

This looks like a scene from a World War II movie, with the rubble, the courtyard, the motorcycle hiding in the shadows. And while there was significant and pivotal action on the island during the way, I am pretty sure this scene wasn’t a relic.

So, how pivotal was the action in Sicily? Here’s what History.com has to say:

The invasion of Sicily, code-named Operation Husky, began before dawn on July 10, 1943, with combined air and sea landings involving 150,000 troops, 3,000 ships and 4,000 aircraft, all directed at the southern shores of the island. This massive assault was nearly cancelled the previous day when a summer storm arose and caused serious difficulties for paratroopers dropping behind enemy lines that night. However, the storm also worked to the Allies’ advantage when Axis defenders along the Sicilian coast judged that no commander would attempt amphibious landings in such wind and rain. By the afternoon of July 10, supported by shattering naval and aerial bombardments of enemy positions, 150,000 Allied troops reached the Sicilian shores, bringing along 600 tanks.

Sciacca, Sicily
photographed 9.2.2022