Chapel of the Madonna di Vitaleta

This is an early dawn image of a Tuscan landmark, the Chapel of the Madonna di Vitaleta On my third trip to Italy, I decided to make this Tuscan landmark a focal point of my trip. Before sunrise the next morning, I set out in the car to drive up to the property. In the dark, it was difficult to find the landmarks. Fortunately, with the directions I had received from the kind assistant at our hotel, I was able to find the dirt road and the small pull off to park my car. After getting out of the car, headlamp alit, I grabbed my camera, backpack and tripod, and started walking toward the faint outline of a farmhouse and the chapel at the top of the hill, silhouetted against the faint light of dawn. As I slowly approached the building, I saw what I thought was an outline of a person. As I approached what I thought was a figure, I was relieved to see “it” was not moving, which I took is a good sign. As I got closer, I realized it was actually a piece of farm equipment. I breathed a sigh of relief. Standing in front of the chapel with the beautiful dawn sky and clouds in the background, I start making my images. Once I was home and editing the images, I just loved the image I ended up with. Different than any other image I had seen of this exquisite chapel. I knew that it was worth everything I had lived through and experienced to get the image.