Since I was a child the rice fields have always fascinated me: when I visited my relatives spent the whole trip to Turin to watch the enchanting panorama made from all these unequal rectangles filled with water , almost like a huge puzzle.
This year I planned well for photographic output in the world of rice fields, just to find those emotions. And that piece of the Po Valley which is the province of Vercelli low gave me a fantastic feeling, returning back in time, as if everything had stayed 30 years ago.
I chose the province of Vercelli because he held more than its agricultural vocation, and was even awarded the title of the European Province of Rice by the EU.
The first stop was the Principality of Lucedio, a magnificent example of the rice industry of the past, with its abbey to make a lighthouse.
D300, Nikon 24-70 at 48mm, ISO 200, f/16, 1 / 50 sec, CPL, GND2
D300, Nikon 24-70 to 62mm, ISO 200, f/16, 1 / 60 sec, CPL, GND2
D300, Nikon 12-24 at 14mm, ISO 200, f/16, 1 / 40 sec, CPL, GND2
Wandering through this land of silence, we came across a small church, lost in the midst of rice fields, with a curious tower that looked like a minaret.
D300, Nikon 12-24 at 24mm, ISO 200, f/16, 1 / 30 sec, CPL, GND4
After searching in vain for other outputs, there appears a whole hill of rape, all to myself.
D300, Nikon 12-24 at 18mm, ISO 200, f/20, 1 / 40 sec, CPL, GND4
Then when the light began to be dyed gold, I could not resist the temptation to return to the Principality of Lucedio and withdraw it from another angle.
D300, Nikon 24-70 at 40mm, ISO 200, f/16, 1 / 30 sec, CPL, GND2
D300, Nikon 70-200 to 90mm, ISO 200, f/16, 1 / 80 sec, CPL
Also nearby, the mammoth Darola House, a veritable barracks: who knows how many workers there lived in when he was still active and mechanization had not yet arrived.
D300, Nikon 24-70 at 27mm, ISO 200, f/16, 1 / 10 sec, CLP, GND2
Finally I felt bound down the immortality the sun over the horizon, when everything around us is dyed red.
D300, Nikon 24-70 at 35mm, ISO 200, f/16, 1 / 10 sec, CPL, GND8
Notes on the route: the road of the Grange ( old farmhouses) starts from Vercelli and crosses to the south-west throughout the rice fields. It seems to be projected in a different dimension, as if the last 30 years had not dampened these places.
The technique of rice cultivation is no longer rapidly changing: for some years in Lomellina you experience a type of rice that grows without being flooded. All this is another clear sign of globalization and the search for savings in agricultural production.
risked losing traditions that are lost in the mists of time, in addition to irreversibly affect the situation in wildlife in the area.
We hope that this does not happen and that the world of rice paddies can still give us all these wonderful emotions.
Technical Note: As I learned to know and use it better, more and more amazed by the ability of D300 to give me back my pictures almost perfect, needing only minimal post-production (virtually the only form of contrast).
