Barga Morning

Barga sits on a hilltop in the Serchio valley, a medieval village above the vineyards and chestnut forests that supply the valley floor, and in the morning the light arrives across that valley from the east in a way that touches the village walls before it reaches anything below. The image captures this — the stone of the village glowing in light that the valley is not yet receiving, the morning still pooled in shadow below while Barga is already in the day. Shot from the village walls, the composition takes in the valley's full sweep to the horizon, the chestnut forests in the middle distance still dark. The Serchio valley was the migration path between Tuscany and the north for a thousand years; Barga's walls were built to watch it.