About the Photographs

Based in the Puglian countryside, these images examine the everyday life of this agrarian landscape. The use of "numinosa" versus "luminosa" in the title of both exhibition and accompanying publication is not by accident but in reference to the Latin word, "numen," indicating some divine presence or nature associated with a particular place. "Numinosa" is a play on the English "numinous" and "luminous" and the Italian "nume" and "luminoso," made in hopes that this invented word points to the primal attachment between people and place in the sunny southern Italian countryside. In this ancient area, if you were told that the stone walls, pens, and shelters that divide and punctuate fields are naturally occurring, you could almost believe it, they seem so organically to grow from the earth. Likewise the people who work and shape the land can seem as manifestations of a rich and ancient spirit that permeates the region. As challenging as daily life in the countryside can be, the strength and grace of its stewards and the poetry of the spaces they create through cultivation can provide a glimpse of the numinous for those who are looking. Beautiful Puglia. Beautiful people.