art
This photographic investigation took place in silence while listening to excerpts from a Ilie Cioara’s book - and affirmed itself through itself as power and beauty. He also wrote: “Life is perpetual freshness, in permanent movement,
As such, we need to be the same way;
A childlike innocence is requested by Existence,
Every time, in every circumstance – a priceless purity.”
This was the code name for an urgent, after midnight photographic investigation of Zenobia, in colour. I have been known to accept the challenge of a colour assignment under conditions that cloud my judgement, like that heat wave that tormented Athens for over a week. I didn’t like it, but a photographic investigator never goes back on an engagement, so I reluctantly finished the investigation. Once again, I swore it was the last time…
Read MoreI ask myself because this is also what we think of our world, don’t we? Architectural models and art can invoke meditations like this in a photographic investigator, in the most unsuspected moments or places. This one happened in Venice, during the 2016 Architecture Biennale.
Read MoreA photographic investigator has always a keen eye for elegant fashion. In this assignment I investigated 3 women and their excellent, minimalist fashion statements in the 2018 Venice Biennale. Just in case you were wondering what to wear while visiting art galleries in Venice. Go shopping, be creative: good things are coming very soon!
Read MoreWhen a photographic investigator has a chance to integrate to the Clear Light of Objective Reality she never misses it. The urge to be free is great to a photographic investigator who has spent her life investigating the illusions /lives of her subjects, as well as her own. And although she has read many times the Tibetan Book of the Dead hoping that she will remember what to do when the time comes, she also likes the American Book of the Dead, by E.J. Gold and his guidance in the bardos. She must remember, she must remember…: “Now I am experiencing the Clear Light of objective reality. Nothing is happening, nothing ever has happened or ever will happen. My present sense of self, the voyager, is in reality the void itself, having no qualities or characteristics. I remember myself as the voyager, whose deepest nature is the Clear Light itself; I am one; there is no other. I am the voidness of the void, the eternal unborn, the uncreated, neither real nor unreal. All that I have been conscious of is my own play of consciousness, a dance of light, the swirling patterns of light in infinite extension, endless endlessness, the Absolute beyond change, existence, reality. I, the voyager, am inseparable from the Clear Light; I cannot be born, die, exist or change. I know now that this is my true nature.” (― E.J. Gold, The American Book of the Dead)
Read More“It’s a carma burner, a quantum mechanics vibration cleaner!” He could see the people who exited it completely or almost “clean”.
Read MoreMichelangelo said: “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free”. In the same way, a photographic investigator very often sees various angelic beings (in this case, an angelbird) in the people that she projects in her world and she photographs them until they are free.
Read MoreSpace 1999 has always been my favourite science fiction TV show. I was 7 years old when it was aired but I remember vividly all the episodes that I watched. Not long ago, I managed to find both series of this amazing TV show and I frequently watch a random episode for inspiration, as every self respecting photographic investigator would do. The one called “Collision course” is about a planet that appearances (and science logic) say that it will crush upon Moon base Alpha (that is stranded in space along with Earth’s moon) unless destroyed with nuclear bombs. But Commander Koening is reached by a being of this planet (in a form of a vision) that explains to him his part in the plot of events: that he is to let the planet touch the Moon base without fear so that it’s inhabitants can reach a higher, purely spiritual level of existence. Koening is struck and convinced by the power and sincerity of this being but finds resistance by the people of the Moon base Alpha who think that he is delusional, possibly from radiation sickness. In the end the cosmic bodies touch and the other planer disappears. The episode finish with Commander Koening saying: “Who could know that a planet in collision course would not collide but simply… touch?”
Read MoreBorn investigators do not look for subjects. Born visionaries don’t ask for visions. William Blake could see into the spiritual world, but how would a photographic investigator possibly grasp what he saw? Waking up this smallest day, this longest night, it was William Blake’s “assistance” that I seeked. But alas! It was a bleak poem that I found, “To the winter” it’s called. I guess it’s appropriate for today, the longest night of the world…
Read MoreI was obsessed with that new TV series, A Discovery of Witches and suddenly, wherever I looked in Venice, I saw vampires, witches and demons… I also realised that there were bewitched places that could be seen only with the corner of the eye. Was it “Somebody else’s problem” (as Douglas Adams would say) or was it mine?
Read MoreOctober is the Celtic month of Ivy and it brings the promise of the inner self and the spiral of life. I read that Ivy’s growth reflects the spiraling patterns of DNA, the gifts our ancestors gave us. For a photographic investigator family is very often a cause for frustration, but this time I decided to see things from the celtic perspective and contemplate on my positive inherited attributes, family traits that have served me well. Made me feel like entering a new, wondrous world…
Read MoreThe theme of the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale is "Freespace". Free space is vital -if a photographic investigator (and any other investigator for that matter, but you must be an investigator) wants to achieve a free mind. Greenland's pavilion was one of my favourites. Not only for it's ample space and minimal concept, but for it's purity. There is a kind of mystical serenity that emerges through your core and enwraps you completely when you are walking in pure snow. The purity of snow triggers it. And this beautiful Greenland free space world, gave you the impression of walking on snow... And as a tropical island lover that I am, I can appreciate a good snow walk, believe me.
Read MoreOne of those typical photographic investigations in Venice, where you intend to investigate one thing and you end up investigating another, a most unexpected one I might add...
Read More"You saw me crying in the chapel, the tears I shed were tears of joy..." sung Elvis and one could easily cry of joy in the Vatican Chapels because they were so beautiful. Of course my subject weren't the chapels themselves but the one who found refuge in them. I had a photographic investigation to do but I also had a soft spot for beautiful people blending with beautiful architecture. My subject was pursued not by me, but from a group of mysterious, very handsome men with impeccable white shirts who invaded one day the vaporetto to San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice. There was something mesmerising in their elegance and style but also something vaguely dark. All I had to do to find my subject was to follow them and I knew right there and then that this would be yet another one of my investigations that it's course had already changed in my mind...
Read MoreI was hired to photographically investigate another strange Venice creature, another dangerous subject. Her name was Medusa, she also belonged to the infamous secret circle of Il Mister (although not so secret anymore after my numerous investigations and revelations) and, what a surprise, I wasn't told (again) why she was dangerous or why she went by that name. Well, Medusa had the ability to turn men into stone with her gaze -if that as the clue that i was supposed to figure out- but I wasn't a man. And even if I were, well, it would be an interesting turn of events, to end up as a stone statue in one of the most beautiful courts of Venice. She looked at me. I don't think I turned into stone. But then again...
Read MoreIt was the day of the summer solstice and it was obvious that she was hiding. But not from me. My assignment was to investigate this beautiful woman who denied her divine nature for an obscure reason. She thought she was just a beautiful model but the way the garden embraced and protected her was more than eloquent to the contrary. it wasn't my job to reveal secret stories and I didn't try to.
Read MoreI don't know if it was an entrance or an exit. Maybe neither. There was light, so inevitably there were shadows. I remembered an arabic song called "Fly shadow, fly". Could I be investigating -without knowing it- the ability of a shadow to fly? Well, if it could, it should do it followed by this melody.
Read MoreWhat can really be the end of a photographic investigator is not travelling in space, but travelling in time. And I've done that a lot... For some unexplained and probably mystical (or totally meaningless) reason, every time I had to travel in time I was going back to Venice. So, my energy resources were every time smaller, although my ticket was getting cheaper and cheaper. It felt like a countdown. "Al fin, que para morir nacimos" as they say in Mexico... "In the end, we are born to die". Who knows? Maybe the end of my photographic investigations would come in the middle, inside the time vortex, outside of time. I wonder if all my work would disappear with me too. It should, I think.
Read MoreThis was his code name and I was supposed to photographically investigate him while passing by the infamous Bridge of Sighs in Venice. Ironically, the real Casanova had actually crossed that bridge. But then, Casanova was one of the very few that had managed to escape from the prisons of Venice... That should have made me a bit more careful and alert, but it didn't. So I ended up mesmerised by what was supposed to be the last sight the future prisoners had of the sky and the outside world -and what a world that was!- and my inner ear fell wide open to their sighs and their thoughts. "Ponte dei Sospiri" was the name given to it by Lord Byron, who, like me, was using Venice to escape from uncomfortable realities... There are no coincidences, I knew that, that's why, deep inside, I knew that my Casanova -like the real one- had already escaped, not because he fantasised or dreamed about it, but because it was the only thing to to.
Read MoreA photographic investigator knows that her subjects, hypnotised by the shadows they create, they don't see the All Watching Eye in the projection wall. Doe's she try to alert them?
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