woman
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.”
My new subject, Tatiana, was working in Sorrento and I was there for it’s healing waters, as I have mentioned in a previous blog post (“The healing waters of Sorrento”). As usual, I had no idea about this new assignment, neither did I know that the woman who served me my sour cherry drink every day, was the one I had to photographically investigate. My clue came one night through intuition and via a dj who was strategically placed in the right time at the right bar by my mysterious employers. Intuition made me send a waiter to ask the name of a song I liked and the clue came in a piece of paper. The dj wrote: “Caritas abundant in Omnia” (“Love Aboundeth in All Things”). It was certainly not the song I’ve heard, but the name of a hymn written by Hildegard of Bingen -a German Benedictine abbess and polymath active as a writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, and as a medical writer and practitioner during the High Middle Ages. I knew right away that I had to look around me for an angelic creature. This is the first part of this photographic investigation…
Read MoreA photographic investigator approaches her assignment with a beginner’s mind. Without plan, without preconceptions, without expectations, without knowledge, without having the slightest idea of what will happen. Than is the only way that a photographic investigation can be true. And that is not a rule, it is an observation.
Read MoreThe clue about my new subject came with the wind. It was expected through the mail, but after an unprecedented explosion in the post office -a product of overwhelming anticipation for the upcoming Chinese New Year, the year of the Dragon- the wind took over the deliveries that the fire failed to eliminate. Only a small piece of half burned paper had survived, with the words: “Eyes with neither artifice nor evasion”. It was one of the more clear clues that I had received for a long time. I knew exactly where to find this amazing subject. The Year of the Dragon was approaching promising not to disappoint…
Read More“Too often man handles life as he does the bad weather;
he whiles away the time as he waits for it to stop”. – Alfred Polgar . Too often a photographic investigator does acts the same way…
Suddenly this fall everything was changing. A photographic investigator can -under extreme circumstances- manipulate planetary and galactic movements to maintain a situation that requires further investigating. And that was exactly what I was attempting this fall. Seven planets became retrograde in order to stop my subjects from moving into different realities. With no success so far. But a photographic investigator also can recognise when a full circle is complete and she surrenders her wants and needs to the wisdom of the universe.
Read MoreWhen a photographic investigator who discovers her subjects following clues that arrive at her doorstep by mysterious ways receives a note that says “Call off the search”, what is she supposed to do? Maybe stop looking and realise that her subject is closer to her than she could have ever imagined.
Read MoreMy new assignment arrived while Dave Brubeck was playing “Take the A train”. My faithful companion brought me a piece of paper that said: “Initial”. In the life of a photographic investigator everything is interconnected and the course of the investigation -as well as it’s subject- are revealed by themselves without the necessity of thinking or wondering. The reason behind it always remains unsaid, though. But I am OK with it. Anyway, I knew that I had to replace the “A” with another letter and that that letter would be the initial of my subject’s first name. My intuition told me that was an
Read More“Originally, Bodhi is not a Tree, Nor is the mind-mirror standing. Originally, not one thing exists,
So where is the dust to cling?”
My new assignment had to do with hair. My new subject’s hair, not hair in general. The Jamaica Inn was a hair salon and at the same time it was my only clue about her and where to find her. As any good photographic investigator I pretended to be a customer with a particularly bad hair week and got to work while a very handsome hair stylist was contemplating what to do with my hair. A photographic investigator is used to make sacrifices.
Read MoreMy subject was witness to a miraculous manifestation. And although the words “manifestation” and “law of attraction” are very widely used and invoked today, very few people actually believe that they work -this is probably why they prefer giving endless lectures about it. But some people can do it, and those people prefer keeping it a secret. So when I was hired to investigate an actual witness to a magical appearance of a mansion -the way Aladin’s lantern would do it- I knew that my subject was on the run and that the time I had was limited…
Read More“Sitting here in limbo, but I know it won’t be long”, sung Jimmy Cliff and that phrase was the clue for my next photographic investigation. My subject was Zenobia, the daughter of a wealthy family from Chicago who was taking a vacation on a tropical island of the Pacific with a suitcase full of golden coins for her expenses. It was a tradition in her family to pay only with gold, but in this island the authorities in the airport had never encountered a similar case -most of them had never seen golden coins before- so they confiscated her gold until a higher authority decided it was OK to give it back. Until then, Zenobia was living in limbo, spending her days in a coffee shop near the airport, waiting for a new development. I know that my powerful, mysterious employers had the power to arrange for her to have her gold back, but they wanted me to photographically investigate her. So I did it fast, because I don’t like for my subjects to be miserable…
Read MoreI was about to watch a 1929 classic black and white film called “The locked door”, starring Barbara Stanwyck, when someone slipped a handwritten note under my door -that was also locked… My mysterious employers had not given me any sign of life for the last two years and I was worried that our secret operations had been revealed to the wrong people. I was in no danger, of course, but I had missed my secret assignments. My faithful helpers, Juanita and Lupe were begging me for some action. I guess cat’s wishes are more rapidly answered… The note provided me with clues about a beautiful, wealthy young woman, which I was supposed to photographically investigate immediately, as she was about to return to Crete -for some nefarious business, I am sure. It was easy. She was suspicious at first, but then, my ability to open locked doors was the one that had made me famous in my field.
Read MoreMy new subject was powerful. She had the ability to transform herself into anything she wished to -organic or inorganic- and she could also transform others. Her power had it’s source in the unshakable conviction that as a daughter of a powerful king she could have all of her wishes fulfilled. And she had a preference in the art of transformation… A photographic investigator must be careful in situations like this one, where a wrong look or word could transform them into a cucumber or an umbrella… So I walked carefully into my new assignment, being alert and ready at any time to push the button of my inter-dimensional wrist watch.
Read MoreA photographic investigator realises sooner or later on her constant journey that she is a traveller. A traveller who is eager to reach her destination quickly, does not look back to see by what road she has come not does she ponder about what she has seen on the way or what she has gained by it, says Sri Anandamayi Ma. Exactly like that, she advises, thoughts of the past must be cast aside in the aspirant’s life.
Read MoreA photographic investigator knows that if you don’t project it in the screen of your mind, it isn’t there. So you don’t see it.
Read MoreA photographic investigator suspects from the beginning that she operates in a make believe world and tries to capture it’s aspects. But there comes a time when suspicions become an undeniable reality and the confinements of Disneyland seem to close in on all its characters. A photographic investigator knows then that it is time to make use of her freedom pass and leave Disneyland.
Read MoreA photographic investigator knows that there is no point in “fighting” the darkness. All one has to do is turn on the light. Keep it simple.
Read MoreThe clue for this photographic investigation was “The van”. Fortunately, an experienced photographic investigator is used to think out of the box and rarely takes her clues literally. It was very easy to locate the miniature van and photographically investigate the subject behind it. Not that I am complaining, but sometimes I think that my mysterious -but very generous- employers need to challenge me a little more…
Read MoreA photographic investigator sooner or later realises that there is a distinction between the screen upon which a movie is projected and the movie itself. Many things happen in that movie and many feelings are evoked to the poor viewer, but the screen remain unchangeable. In times of pressure or general fear and anxiety, a photographic investigator always reminds herself: “Nothing real can be threatened, nothing unreal exists…”
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