One of the first things Photographer/Director Tom Hussey noticed while wandering through the small towns of Sicily was every afternoon, older men gathered in the piazzas. On the steps. On benches. Standing in little groups. Talking, arguing, laughing, watching.
Curious by nature, Tom asked about it. “As someone approaching that demographic myself, I may have been conducting a little unscientific field research.”
What Tom learned is that traditionally, while the women gathered at home with children, neighbors and friends, the men headed to the piazza. It became their outdoor living room, where politics, soccer, local gossip and presumably the occasional world crisis could all be settled before heading home to dinner.
“As a photographer, I found myself wondering less about what they were talking about, and more about how long they’d been talking to one another. How many decades of friendship, weddings, funerals and ordinary afternoons were shared by these men who instinctively knew where everyone would be sitting?”
Tom was moved to capture this tested tradition of connection. “Whatever they were discussing, they showed up again the next afternoon, and somehow that felt like one of the most beautiful traditions I found in Sicily.”
For more of Tom’s work, visit his Workbook portfolio.
