Mt. Etna – May 15th

In this moment

that’s what me or people on my left are probably looking at, just from an higher point of view.

It’s such a great show!

Mt. Etna, 6:37 am

Every in that house was gone to get some rest.

Well, not yet.

Mt Etna, 5:45 am

Early morning 14th August 2010.

I had just spent the whole night outside and while watching lighter stars “disappearing” from sky as the sun lights aheaded on us I noticed 2-3 stars close to Mt. Etna and all was of a lovely blue shades.

I know these little pictures don’t give the idea of what I saw, but it was really amazing that at least a couple of “Thank you” spontaeously came out.

Soon later I “broke” my polarizing lens, and so came out not nice word, but fortunately the webmaster fixed it.

^_^

P.S. In one week I’ll be in Rimini for the Meeting of Rimini, I’m feeling strange about it, indeed I’m partially excited, partially worried but I don’t know the reason of this last feeling.

Mt. Etna

It’s not all over :)

I feel a little gloomy

although today I had the luck to spend a few hours trying to find something popping up from darkness

and although I still have the luck to dream and hope I’ll be able to leave a mark, even a thin one, on this world that will be “enlighten” by The Eternal Light.

Despite all, I already decided a life course,

that appears to be the opposite of the one that should be, but, this it the only possible good one at the moment…

therefore I’ve to complete my work, to complete what I’ve started 3 years ago (and I’m already late).

Completing this work might mean to never change direction, but surely it means, now, to drop the camera for a while… to keep it always beside me and ready to sh3oot, because I do need it to “breath” and go ahead… but being ready only for taking pictures if “something comes” and stop looking for that “something” for a little while…

Tonight I probably saw the end of the last day of “freedom to look for”, that’s why I feel a little gloomy but, only a little.

Today sunset said me “Stop playing with the camera and go back to your real work”, but it told me in a kind and comfortable way.

As that little star wanted to tell “it’s not ALL over when sun goes down”…

I know, this happen at every sunset, but that’s the one I’ve been watching to for 1 hour and half peeking out from a narrow window of the small attic of my brother’s house.
Once again I was being stuck by narrow spaces but, today, I was feeling free because I had the freedom to look around, to see sky around me.

Among

Among the pictures I’ve taken this morning:

Among the pictures taken in the afternoon:

The 19yrs old girl and the ladder.

Passed the test – Slept – Talked with friends and family – Spent the whole night awake talking with friends – Slept – Had a long long shower -Had dinner

Started to clean up pictures. There’s such a big mess… a lot to do, but I’ve a 2 days of relax left, I think I can do it… Actually I THOUGHT!

After 5 minutes I found some Mt Etna eruption “test” pictures.

I had almost forgot that I did it. I had to check the date on the file details (thanks Lord I keep my camera knowing what’s the day and the time).

Gee! It was April 2007. Seems so long ago!

I always wished to be able to take a good shot of Mt Etna during one of its eruption, but I’ve never had the occasion to find a group of people climbing up there, close enough to take great shots. Parents says it’s dangerous, friends get bored by the idea, some friends of friends goes to “observing places” that are not closer than my country house… I’m still waiting for the chance to go there during an eruption.

At that time I was 19. I was still a “fighter” and I didn’t give up with the idea of “trying” to take picture of Mt Etna eruption… the show was too amazing to just look at that.

But… I HADN’T A TRIPOD! Probably I bought it AFTER these shots.

BTW, I went in the house and took a ladder that become my new tripod.

The ladder wasn’t exactly stable,  I started using books or any kind of “weight” to make it stable. I also asked parents to avoid to walk close to “my area”…

That’s the way I took 10 shots about in order to get a decent picture of Mt Etna during eruption, even if it was too far to get such a shot. That’s probably why I’ve never published these pictures… now I think is kinda funny-sweet seeing them, and don’t seem that bad.

Even if, I still hope that the next “eruption time” I’ll be able to get as close as possible to it. (I’m not brave, there is no danger if you go there with wise people and guide)

Mt Etna

New gallery online!

Here you are some picture of one of the 2 things I love of my Sicily: Mt Etna. According to wikipedia in Italian is named “mungibeddu” (“mount mount”, I think that it’s so big that sicilian considered useful to underline the fact it was as big as a mountain…:D) and in sicilian “muncibeddu” that means “our mountain”. I didn’t know it… but I won’t argue about what they say because I didn’t study much about Mt Etna name origins (especially because Italian and English wiki page don’t agree about the meaning of the name too, that’s kinda weird!), but I’m sure that people who speak Italian here just refer to it as “Etna” or “L’Etna” (The [mount] Etna). Mystery of knowledge…

As most of you know it’s a volcano, so it’s kinda fascinating and scaring as it erupts, but growing up here you “get used” to it. You understand it protects Catania from cold north winds and at times from big earthquakes when it erupts. Thousands of years ago, probably even more, there was no mountain there, now it’s so big and fascinating… isn’t our world fascinating?

The are many legends related to it, but this isn’t the place to talk about it…that I can find in Italian wikipedia but in English one I cannot find much more than this, probably I’m not using the proper words in the search field.

Ok, I give up in trying to give you more cultural information, I’ll come back in having a “personal” blog about pictures, so let’s see Mt Etna in my life…

I can tell a lot of things about, I love to look at it as much as I can and it’s one of the first “subject” I’ve tried to take “serious” pictures of.

From the airport you can see it clearly, indeed when I was 12 and left Sicily to go for 2 weeks in England (first time in my life outside Italy) I’ve been looking at Mt Etna as long as I could… I looked at it from the window of the airplane and tried to do a drawing of it. I did drawings of it and Sicily during all the 2 weeks in England. I was too young to left my house alone to “pretend” to study English in a way I could never learn it. I hated that travel from the deepest of my hearth, and was so joyful when I was coming back home. I was so happy that I’ve almost hugged the pilot of the airplane that took me back to Italy because he said me “Welcome” in Italian… and when I reached the airport, before caring about my bags, I hugged the first object that told me “You’re in Italy” only just because I couldn’t hug Mt Etna. Yes, I’ve always been a weird girl
Mt Etna and the sea are, now, the only “sign of Sicily” make me “feel at home” as I felt that day 10 years ago, at least for a few seconds.
The only signs that can make me smile and say “Wow, look how amazing it is!”, even when I’m in a really dark mood .

I see that everyone here loves the moumtain, in a way or another. Most of us are used to see it from one side that when happens to see a picture taken from another point of view we start wondering if it’s really Mt Etna. Kinda stupid, I know, but I think it’s “funny” and “interesting” at the same time

As you can see I do love taking pictures of Mt Etna with snow on it. In sicilian coast city, there is no snow… so it’s a little weird for us to see “so much snow” and, if I’ve to be a little proud of my land, even people from North Italy consider “strange” to see so much snow on a south Italy mountain. If we want to be silly Mt Etna is 100% Sicilian, silent but interesting and really dangerous if it gets angry

The pictures in the gallery are just 6 of the best I’ve taken with my reflex. I’m still thinking if doing a gallery about the 2002 Eruption. I’ve taken those pictures with a compact camera, an Olympus C-1 zoom, 1.3 mpx… but this is another fact.

[Numbering refers to the gallery sequence, not to the picture shown above]

My fave picture in this gallery is the first.

This is the last picture of of Mt Etna that I’ve taken. I took it on August 16th, early in the morning. As I’ve already told you. I hope to take more Mt Etna pictures with the polarizer.

The second and the third have been taken from the Catania port dock.

The 4th and the 5th have been taken in March 2008, at the end of a local way of the cross. The place we reach at the end of each WoC is amazing, I hope to get more shots of that place soon.

The 6th is the oldest. Christmas 2005, from the top of a building in Catania, close to the sea… a special picture for me, not for some particular beauty I see in it, but for what it recalls to me.

Hope you’ll enjoy them!

«Whoever has “eyes” to see ought to see”»

I went to see shooting stars and trying to catch a picture of one of them. I took no shooting star picture, but I had the pleasure to see the show given by the more “static” stars…and appreciate the difference of color and length path of each of them:

It was cold, cooler than I thought because it had rained the previous afternoon and the moon rose, making the “seeing” less good, but there was something of really good to enjoy:

the just risen, amazing, moon!

We went to sleep (at about 3.30 am) saying to each other: “We’ll wake at 5am and see how the sky looks like”… we woke up at 7am, and just because the sun had just “risen” from the nearby little wood! ;D
We surely couldn’t go back of 2 hours, but we went out to check if there was some amazing … nothing.
But, we’ve notice a little bashful  “young lady”, that showed itself just the time of a couple of pictures and then flown away… as it just wanted to wish a “Good Morning”…

or just didn’t want to distract me from another amazing show, that I wish I could see from my window in Catania, but that I can just see at my country house…

… and this show allowed me to take the best picture of the day, and I even hadn’t thought that I was going to take a picture of Mt. Etna

It’s so weird that, if we talk about picture, I have no problem if something goes in a way I didn’t plan, and to be able to appreciate the unexpected.
With the passing of time, looks like that this “maybe-gift” and “sure-distraction” of taking pictures is, somehow, the way that Someone is using to tell me:

<<Whoever has “eyes” to see ought to see!>>

Longer, but nicer

Tomorrow morning I have a spoken test. The subject is what we call “Laboratory of Physics II”, it’s about electronic stuff and a lot of other things that might be interesting but, for various reasons, passing this test, for me,  become something of really difficult and annoying. (Just… I already tried to pass it in April…).

I don’t feel ready, but it’s ok.
I have to go ahead.I have to get these degree even if I regret I’ve chosen to study physics.

So, my old friend “sense of duty” made me studying today too, despite all the desire to go out for taking picture, or to go to the sea.
I have been reviewing stuff with the help of my boyfriend…and, I had a stupid problem in understanding a little thing, and this made me pretty upset.
Yeah, I am a very proud person…

By the way, I need to lie on a bed for a while, so at about 4 pm we went home but I asked to my friend to drive me home through the longest street but where I could see my Mt Etna

to which I shot picture from Catania port dock

That, I could see with the whole gulf

where it’s inserted, all while I was coming back home.

I hate to be living in Sicily, I feel like I hadn’t all the chances I could have in big cities… but I do love those “scenarios”.

They give me peace.

And when all those scenarios where going to disappear behind big buildings,… I found myself thinking about the gulf formation (I studied it at school) and that it has been made for us…
I thought about the fact that it gave a place where to love to thousands of people in history.

That it was just amazing.

I am not serene as I should be, I still feel I could have done more if I hadn’t felt so bad in the last months.
I don’t think I’ll get a good mark at the exam.

But I am sure I will be able to shot pictures at night (got to take pictures during a”social dinner” of a maths teacher congress)
and that my Mt Etna and my Gulf will be still there (well, hopefully or I would die…) even  in the next days.
I promised to both of them to take a good pictures of them as soon as I can. I really need nicer pictures of them, the beauty I saw today isn’t in the pictures I am showing here