A photographic investigator knows that her subjects have been instructed, early in their life, to start constructing a story about themselves -enriched over the years with bits of experience, failures, successes, oppressed feelings and desires- and then believe it to be true. So naturally they get trapped in that story, rarely managing to escape it’s limitations. But she also knows that in a twinkling of the eye this truth can be realised and the subjects can write a different story, preferably one of harmony, radiance, health, wealth, love and perfect self expression. A happy story.
It was the beginning of fall and I somehow got obsessed with the series "Stranger things". Maybe my 80's childhood was to blame, who knows... And then, in between my ET and Poltergeist memories there was this unpublished photographic investigation that I did in Giudecca, in May... What I was actually investigating is not of importance now, only the fact that I suddenly discovered an otherwordly ambiance to it -combined with the fact that the sea weeds made me think of the "upside down world"...
"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...
I 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...
That was the name of her destination, a place one could travel to without moving, since it was in another dimension. I have done so many trips of that sort in my photographic investigations career that I was reluctant to follow. Interdimensional travel is very dangerous for the life of the photographic investigator because it depletes -in a very rapid rate- the vital energy supplies. I didn't have much of them anymore. But a photographic investigator can't just sit and preserve whatever energy she has left. It's like being dead already. "You never know which one could be your last investigation" I thought to myself. It might as well be this one.
One of the most essential reasons mystery people -the people I investigate- prefer Venice for their activity is that Venetians never use gondolas. They are reserved for the dreadful tourists. So the people in question use them widely. Who wants to look at a tourist in Venice? Hiding in plain site has always been their game.
