Alberobello is a very unique town even within Italy itself as it is the town of Alberobello is well known for it's very unusual architecture: the "trulli". these are small round buildings with conical roofs and are found only in a radius of 50 Km or less of the main town which has a certain number of these buildings (over 1000).
It has a unique history that tells of the lord of the town being very astute to the despair of his subjected towns people. Because the "Count of Coversano" did not wish to pay building taxes to the king of Naples - not Italy yet as at that time in history Italy was still devided into kindoms the largest that of Naples covering all the land south of Naples and Sicily, it was actually the king of the smaller kindom of Tuscany that was the rightful king of Italy and when Italy was reunited he did take power as the first king of Italy but that was long after the history of this town.
So the clever count to advoid paying taxes ordered his subjects to build without cement or mortar only drystone was permited and built in such a way that they could be pulled down very quikly in the event of an inspector from the king of whose visit in those days he would have plenty of forewarning as travel was slow.
The countryside surrounding Alberobello is literally dotted with "trulli". My personal opinion is that the countryside trulli are much more interesting than the actual town. This is mainly because they are immersed in countryside which I love and they are more stylish than those in the town.
Some are as small as one room topped by a single cone, but many are full sized houses with many rooms and include different architectural features within the same building.
It is sad that many of these dwellings are becoming abandoned and derelict, unless maintained any trullo with start to fall down in roughly 100 years and as people have no more use for trulli located in the country they sonn will - be no more. I therefor feel that these images are unique as in a few years these beautiful structures will no longer be present in this form.
Plymouth as you probably know is on the sea and is in the southwest of England. I think it is a lovely city partly due to its seaside location but thats not the only reason its one of Englands historic towns. I love the old architecture there and obvuisly the sea side scenery, namely "The Hoe".
Plymouth has an important place in our history as this is where Sir Walter Raileigh and Drake set out from to repel the attack of the spanish Armada. The huge spanish ships were slow to maneuver and were easily out run and out maneuvered by the smaller british ships that although in lesser number left the spanish surprised and most importantly defeated.
Today Plymouth remembers the events of the past in the names given to its public buildings and places, such as the drake circius shopping centre.
I spent a delightful week in Exeter and went all over it (within reason) and I came back with many pictures I'm fairly happy with. The one thing that did strike me about Exeter is how green it is, there are parks and places to walk all over it and you don't get the typical city claustrophobia feeling.
Water is the basis of life we are taught but its also a beautiful and pleasing presence in most pictures and makes a great subject. The pictures in this section have water as the subject and don't included specif elements of the location. Can anybody guess the locations ?
The Sea, scientists tell us is where all life crawled from millions of years ago and it seems we like to go back to it now and then just to see if its changed that much. To many people the sea is still a source of livelyhood in the form of fishing, many people love boating in the crystal clear open waters the sea has to offer and most of us are content to enjoy the closest of encounters in the form of a refreshing swim.
Theres nothing that special about Irchester that I know of except that I live there at the moment ;-) but just in case your curious about where I come from here it is
Animals are all around us in some shape or form. We often ignore them or just don't see them but they share this world with us and can make some lovely subjects.
At a stones throw distance from Kettering in Northamptonshire (UK) is Burton Latimer that is not only notable as being the home of weetabix but a gracious wind farm that generates a small portion of our electricity. The windfarm is on the other side of the A6 and the size of the windmills is impressive.
To those that don't like these stupendous feats using two exscuses being firstly that they are ugly, I don't think so they are very gracefull and don't even use any space, standing in the middle of fields they don't prevent the ground they stand on from being used for growing crop. The second exscuse to resent them is that the birds don't like the low frequency sound they produce, I find this hard to beleive, whilst I was up there taking pictures there were birds all around.
Sometimes its a small object and often its just a detail in a larger object. Close ups sometimes wrongly called macros make sure the image hits you in the face as a statement. It brings this you would hardly see because of its small size to your attention or it shows you that detail in the big picture you would never have noticed
Copyright 2006 - 2008 Simon Andrew Turner
All Rights Reserved
While I allow you to veiw my pictures they are for veiwing on this website only and not to be copied by
any means for any other use, if you wish you can purchase my pictures using the link on the top or bottom of each page or
contact me directly and we can make arrangments.
