Wave Watching in Bonassola means the show of sea storms on the Italian Riviera, a photo book by Stefano Gallino, Alessandro Benedetti, and Luca Onorato.
This photo book makes those who browse it travel up to my place, in eastern Liguria. It is a journey through the layers and nuances of waves and their charming power that make thoughts fly away.
The conformation of the coastline territory where I live offers amazing sea storms, among the most violent and spectacular of Italy. I often stop to look at them for a moment and, in between the endless geometry created wave after wave and the dull roar that wraps it all, when I move on, hours have passed …
Wave Watching is the first specific book fully detailing the passion for the sea storms, through the beautiful pics of Sasha Benedetti, often looking like abstract paintings, but also thanks to insights that analyze historic sea storms such as that of 1955 and illustrate the origins of waves in the Ligurian Sea.
Sasha also gives valuable technical tips for taking pictures of both waves and the surfers that ride them.
The volume also contains a special “wave atlas” that illustrates various locations on the Italian Riviera, mapping them to allow people to enjoy the sea storm’s enchantment in total safety.
Bonassola. The sea and in the background “La Guetta,” the red building where I grow up.
About the authors of Wave Watching in Bonassola
Alessandro Benedetti, known as Sasha, is a IENI-CNR researcher and lives in Bonassola. It is a great lover and connoisseur of Ligurian waves and sea storms, and a passionate photographer, and the village in which he lives allows him to give free rein to this passion.
I met him a few nights ago after a public presentation of his book and science in Bonassola, and I took the opportunity to ask him about his love for the waves:
When did your passion for the waves started?
I would say never … meaning that it actually always existed as the waves attract me since ever.
I remember the summer of 1986, when I realized that taking pictures of them would have allowed the waves to be mine for ever.
The photograph of the wave is to the actual wave what wet hands are to the quenched throat.
It is only a consolation prize, a bit like the wooden medal, but it’s the best I can long for and that’s all I have left after a storm.
That, the storm is the real excitement.What does a wake give to you?
Well, that’s another story. I am lucky to live and work – I’m in charge off a laboratory of CNR which is right in Bonassola – where the finest sea storms in Liguria ground, on a beautiful coastline stretch in between Levanto, Bonassola and Framura, connected by a panoramic walking and biking path.
Here the exposure to the south-west front, the steep seabed, the coastal heterogeneous profile, the variety and accessibility of storm observation points make this coast an unmissable sea scene.
Sasha in a pic taken by his friend Marco Lano
The book, however, is the work of three people, Sasha and two other meteorologists of the Ligurian Regional Agency for Environmental Protection:
- Luca Onorato, a marine biologist who collaborates with leading magazines and forecaster for some surf contest
- Stefano Gallino, physical, yachtsman, and weather coach of the Italian Sailing Federation for the Olympic Games of 2012
You can order Wave Watching in a bookshop or online by clicking on this link.
