Star Trail at Cannizzola Badlands

From the photographer: “In the past I had the pleasure of showing you my shots accompanied by the history of the place and my photographic experience. What I am presenting to you today is instead a photographic journey dedicated to a particular Sicilian location that involved me and my friend Orazio for more than two weeks. The place where I want to accompany you is called Calanchi Cannizzola and is located in the province of Catania. Before telling you about my journey, it is necessary to explain what a gully is. A gully is a terrain that has undergone severe geological erosion due to the presence of a clayey and partly sandy substratum subjected to extremely dry summers followed by a process of soil washout due to heavy rains. The gullies form along hilly slopes where the rain has carved furrows that over time tend to become deeper and branch out. These lands are visible in many parts of the world but in Sicily it is possible to admire a region full of valleys and intersections which is located south of Centuripe. On the night of the super moon in July we went to the place along the panoramic road that runs along the crests of the gullies and sometimes the valley bottom. The idea was to use the moonlight to bring out the colors of the barren earth of the Sicilian summer so that the shots were reminiscent of desert areas. The view is breathtaking and the colors are intense and live in the contrast between the yellow, the browns and the turquoise blue of the sky crossed by the stars.

In my photographs I always seek the unity of heaven and humanity: a single people under a single sky but not being able to film the sky from several parts of the world, I make sure that the world expresses itself through my land. Sicily becomes a micro world where the concept of border can be broken; a place like the Cannizzola Calanques becomes a metaphor for the calanques of Cappadocia in Turkey or the parks of the Badlands in the desert areas of the United States.”

Technical details: Canon 6d, Canon 8-15mm, f/4, iso 400, 20 sec