On Reds
Italian reds, that is!
Welcome to the Tuesday UnRecipe post for all subscribers! We’re diving deep into a series of photo essays I took in Italy this summer. On Friday, paid subscribers will receive a recipe for fresh cranberry beans. As always, you can learn more about me here. Thanks for being a supporter of Page & Plate!
This summer, I spent three weeks in Italy…again. At this point, you’re probably wondering if I’ve yet realized there are other places in the world to travel. I promise you that I do realize that! And I have an appetite for those places. It’s just that Italy keeps tempting me back, and I keep letting her do it.
My three weeks were split into four distinct parts: a job, vacation, a solo retreat, and a group retreat. I’ll tell you more about the job soon, I promise, but what I want to talk about first is the retreat part. Led by my long-time photography teacher, Rachel Korinek, the retreat focused on compiling photo stories.
The theory behind these photo stories is to group photos by colors, textures, and shapes to tell a larger story. I would be lying if I said that this wasn’t my dream assignment. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing these photo stories with you and explaining a bit about the inspiration for each of them.
The first photo story is focused on warm tones and how they express themselves in the natural light that I’m so drawn to in Italy. Particularly at the seaside and in the markets, reds, oranges, and yellows catch your eye and shape-shift under the warm Italian sun.
When I look at these photos, I see colors (such colors!), but I also see the stories behind those colors. A tangle of fishing nets drying in the late afternoon sun. A pile of nectarines that will be perfectly ripe by the time you take them home. Pasta bellies full of pecorino and pear, and dusted with the 00 flour the pasta maker left behind. An afternoon spritz, already beading with condensation. Huge, spiny prawns, so fresh you might have seen them swimming this morning, briny with the salt of the sea. Plums, warmed to bursting in the sunset light.
Something about each of these photos tells the story of a moment: the moment that precedes a meal. Whether from the moment the food leaves its source or up to the moment you press a cool glass to your lips, it’s all there, and then, all of the sudden, you are too: in Italy, about to feast.
Make sure you click on each photo to see it in full crop, then let me know what you think below! Next week, we’re diving into a world of greens and some Harry Potter inspo. See you then!
See you on Friday for beans and back here next week for another photo story!
Such beautiful photos!