Feste religiose in Sicilia

Fernando Scianna
Feste religiose in Sicilia

Photographs: Fernando Scianna

Text: Leonardo Sciascia

Publisher: Leonardo da Vinci Editrice.

222 pages

Year: 1965

Comments: Hardcover under illustrated jacket, 14 x 20 cm, b&w photographs. Text in Italian. Copy in very good condition other than the trace of the adhesives in first and last page. Cited in The photobook history Parr and Badger vol 3 p56.

Feste religiose in Sicilia, which launched his career as a photographer. The book won the prestigious Nadar prize in 1966, and earned Scianna an invitation from Henri Cartier-Bresson to join the Magnum agency.

Scianna had a good subject, but he also proved to be an excellent photographer of the 'decisive moment' - enough to interest Cartier-Bresson. On the occasion of religious festivals in the most remote Sicilian villages, Scianna focused on the way in which these gatherings, as in pagan times, allowed people to come together and share an intense experience that reinforced their sense of common identity.

their sense of common identity. The use of light and shadow makes his images, with their complex structure, spectacular.

Excerpt from The photobook history Gerry Badger p 56.