Val d'Orcia Land in Autumn

The landscape of the Val d'Orcia, a Unesco World Heritage Site, was celebrated by the painters of the Sienese School which flourished during the Renaissance period and its images, particularly the depictions of landscapes in which people are portrayed living in harmony with nature, have become an icon of the Renaissance which has profoundly influenced thinking about landscape.

I wanted to depict this marvelous landscape between mid-October and mid-November 2021 at its most characteristic moment, when the Crete were being worked and ready for the sowing of wheat. I shot them all at the crack of dawn in order to take advantage of the play of light and shadow that are needed to best describe the beauty of this landscape. This trip started from San Quirico d'Orcia and ended in Pienza, Tuscany, in Italy.