The Print: Printed on Kodak Polymax Fine Art fiber based paper

Print size is 14 inches square

Matt size is 22X23 inches

All materials are of the highest quality, archival, acid-free, and ph neutral

The Subject: Domenico Montecchio

The Experience: I was in graduate school working as a photo teaching assistant on a semester abroad program in Castiglione-Fiorentino, Arezzo. Castiglione is a small walled town about an hour south of Florence by train. It is next to the town of Cortona, made famous by the book Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes which I highly recommend.

I have traveled to many countries, but the trips last only a week or two--a month if I am lucky. This trip was an opportunity to live in another place for 4 months. I walked the streets of Castiglione almost every day with my camera. Towards the end of the trip, I was walking in the valley outside the town and happened upon a family harvesting olives. This situation summed up everything I felt about Italy: the sense of tradition, close family ties, connection to the land and to history, as well as the ever-present appreciation and pleasure of the moment.

With much gesturing and severely broken Italian, I asked if I could photograph. They smiled in consent and I proceeded to shoot several rolls. Great nets were spread out on the ground to catch the olives that were shaken and combed out of the trees. The children would climb to the uppermost branches of the trees to shake olives loose. The parents climbed hand-made ladders and used long metal combs to loosen the olives. The grandparents remained on the ground and scooped up fallen olives in large coffee cans. Although it was hard work, lots of joking and laughing took the place of any complaining.

After about a half-hour of photographing, the family decided to take a break and invited me deeper into their olive grove to a small shed where they fed me dried prunes and very tasty red wine. After more than enough wine, the grandfather, Domenico Montecchio (as he wrote in my journal), turned to me with an excited expression and gestured for me to follow him. We walked a small path winding through the grove thick with olive trees. Just before the end of the grove, he turned to me with a broad smile and pointed just ahead. I stepped along side him to find a small gap in the trees which perfectly framed a small castle on a hill a few hundred yards away.

I took a few frames of the castle and turned around to find a far better picture. Domenico was standing a few yards behind with a mixed look of amusement and deep pride. He was gently holding onto the leaves of an olive branch with his left hand. I exposed one frame, took a step forward and took another. He became self conscious and the moment was gone. The second picture remains my best portrait and one of my favorite images. While it is a portrait of Domenico, I feel it is also a portrait of my impressions and experiences in Tuscany as well as a more universal picture of the human condition.