Rocco Galatioto, nice photos and good food

Scopello is always pictured featuring it's spectacular seascapes and faraglioni, sea boulders that rival those of Capri. The hamlet and hilltop village is also worthy of notice. This is an image of the entrance to the hamlet. I used the soft focus filter to create the mood I wanted.

It was very hot in Sicily this summer and it still is. I was trying to capture the feeling of this heat and used the soft focus filter on the Olympus E-PL 2. I like this cortile anyway.

This is our neighborhood in Paris, so to speak. We always stay at the Hotel De la Vigne in the Saint Germain de Près area. It is very close to the river, to Notre Dame and to the metro. This is the old Latin quarter that has now become gentrified but has kept most of it's charm.

The mega pixel race will never end. There's an insatiability out there for more and more pixels. For newer cameras, for more and more. But will this lead to better photos?  And you believed that the pixel race  ended a few years. No such luck. Canon has just announced that it has  developed a CMOS sensor of 250 million pixels. It has the same size as the   in the EOS 1D Mark IV. The APS-H chip is 29.2x20.2mm, a little larger than the 27.9x18.6mm EOS 1D Mk IV sensor, and has a pixel configuration of 19580x12600. Go figure.  

This scene takes place every night into the early hours of the morning up the steps from my house in Castellammare del Golfo. The scenes look  like a theater sets. Incredibly friendly, generous and nice people who sit outside  all summer long to pass away the hot nights. Their children sit near by or are inside enjoying AC and using their smart  phones. None of this here where old fashion face to face communication still reigns; not to mention the many long table outdoor meals that we have shared. So there are still pockets of tradition and I'm glad that my neighbors still have it. It's fun to be with  such nice people.    

A gain I decry this modernization hat has eaten the soul out of my town. All is pointing toward tourism at the expense of the traditional activities such as fishing farming and other local industries. The marina is no longer a truly functioning one and there are only a handful of fishermen left. It's all restaurants, bars, and hotels that  could really be anywhere. Nothing unique has been retained. Very sad. This old fisherman lives up the street from me. I must say that in this street there still is much of the street life left although the smart phones are everywhere and  young people are always texting to one another. His name is Giuseppe and he is addressed as uncle a tittle of great respect here. He was  trying to mend old nets.Today no one mends nets because they are made of synthetic fibers. This skill will also be lost. The New York T shirts sort of says it all.