`The Beauty of Olive Trees - Olive Oil Times
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The Beauty of Olive Trees

By Luciana Squadrilli
Jun. 16, 2012 16:17 UTC

A wooden snake seems to slither from an olive tree, unless it is part of the same tree. It’s one of the most pow­er­ful and evoca­tive images taken by Guerino Trivisonno, an Italian 60 year-old doc­tor spe­cial­ized in hema­tol­ogy – he also set up a local blood donor asso­ci­a­tion — who devoted him­self to pho­tog­ra­phy, a long-time pas­sion along with paint­ing and art in gen­eral.

He is the author of the stun­ning images that were exposed in San Martino in Pensilis old cas­tle on the occa­sion of Extrascape, the inter­na­tional olive oil and olive land­scape com­pe­ti­tion orga­nized by Molisextra, a local pro­duc­ers asso­ci­a­tion led by Francesco Travaglini.

The small vil­lage in Molise, one of Italy’s less known regions, also hosted ​“Extrascape.jpg” — a pho­tog­ra­phy con­test about olive land­scapes. Trivisonno decided non to enter the com­pe­ti­tion, but to donate his pic­tures just for the plea­sure to see them dis­played.

“I always had a deep pas­sion for images and sculp­tures and when I was kid I wanted to study arts. But my par­ents did­n’t agree so I choose another career,” he said. ​“I became a doc­tor, but I could never for­get my pas­sion. So I started tak­ing pic­tures of the local vil­lages I vis­ited to pro­mote blood dona­tion, espe­cially among young peo­ple. I could find that show­ing them their own places and life was a pow­er­ful way to let them feel more involved. So I started read­ing books about visual com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and I also noticed that my pic­tures were highly appre­ci­ated.”

A com­pletely self-taught pho­tog­ra­pher, Trvisonno refined his style thanks to a friend­ship with fel­low pho­tog­ra­phers such as Tony Vaccaro, an American pho­tog­ra­pher whose fam­ily came from Bonefro, a small vil­lage in Molise. Vaccaro is well known for his pho­tos taken in Europe dur­ing and imme­di­ately after World War II and for his fash­ion and lifestyle pic­tures for U.S. mag­a­zines.

Trivisonno also found that social media like Facebook and Flickr could be a good source of pro­fes­sional growth, get­ting in touch with so many other pho­tog­ra­phers, and he found his own dis­tinc­tive fea­ture in ​“pet­ri­fy­ing” peo­ple.

Everything can touch him but his favourite sub­ject remains nature, in all of its shapes. He has an impres­sive col­lec­tion of the rarest bugs and but­ter­flies liv­ing in this area, and now he also has a good reper­toire of olive trees and land­scapes.

“I’ve known Francesco Travaglini for a long time, since he is a blood donor, and we are good friends. When he pro­posed me to enter the com­pe­ti­tion, I did­n’t liked the idea that my pic­tures could be judged but I would have been happy to par­tic­i­pate to this beau­ti­ful ini­tia­tive. So I spent five days roam­ing through local fields and olive­yards to take my pic­tures.”

“Olive trees are one of the main fea­ture of our land­scape. We have many impres­sive cen­turies-old trees, and what I love the best about them is that their green color never fades. The olive tree is one of the sym­bols of Southern Italy’s land­scape, and it gives me a feel­ing of strength and rest­ful­ness at the same time,” he told Olive Oil Times.

“Going around the Molise coun­try­side was an intense expe­ri­ence, bring­ing back old mem­o­ries: the spe­cial atmos­phere of olive pick­ing, gath­er­ing together with fam­ily and friends and eat­ing bread with the freshly milled oil. These are old tra­di­tions that can help us keep our soci­ety together, and olive oil is a gen­uine prod­uct of our land that we should con­serve and enhance.”

You can find Guerino Trivisonno on Facebook, where he will be happy to be your friend and share his expe­ri­ence and his beau­ti­ful images.


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