Michael Wilkins
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Photograph of a stone Saracen watchtower built onto a rocky headland above clear turquoise water on the Amalfi Coast, small boats moored below and green cliffs rising behind.

The Watchtower

Amalfi Coast, Italy · July 2017

1D X Mark II, 75 millimetres, f 7.1, 1/125 of a second, ISO 100

Built to watch for pirates. Now it watches for boats full of tourists.

One of the Saracen towers strung along this coast — a sixteenth-century early-warning system against raiders, each one within sight of the next. This one is welded onto a headland with the water running clear turquoise underneath it. Shot from a boat, which is the only angle that shows how absurdly the thing is perched.