I was hired to investigate a strange love exhaling group in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It's members were practising love exhaling exercises, under the pretext of the widely encouraged act of smoking. Smoking was cool and "safe" whereas acts of love weren't. The method consisted in inhaling all the pain and misery and the dark shades of the world -or of the surrounding environment- visualising them transforming into light and exhaling then as pure love (although in the eyes of many it looked just like exhaling smoke). One of my favourite assignments, since I love learning new skills while photographically investigating… Which reminds me… I have to go practise my exercises now…
Read Moreblack&white
Ramona
Life is a good mexican telenovela. I know, because I love them. So I can't help but noticing that it is based on the same fundamental rules: 1. truth always reveals itself 2. nobody is absolutely without a heart 3. desires come true but are never what you expected them to be 4. obsessions drain your energy so that you will almost certainly need a plastic surgery before the telenovela ends (if it's a long one) 5. beauty opens all the doors 6. in the end, balance is restored 7. it's not real, it's just actors, costumes, a play and a director. Having shared this revelation with you, I'll go back watching Ramona, a great mexican telenovela from the late 90's starring Eduardo Palomo (R.I.P. our beloved Eduardo…). Even the most impartial and dedicated to observation photographic investigator has her soft spots… (Another telenovela characteristic: even though you are just a watcher, you feel affection for the characters. Ramona makes me cry.)
Read MoreThe gondolier's house
It was the day when 6 of my most mysterious and dangerous subjects, Il Mister, The Fox, The Muse, El Guapo, Eleonora Krane and Jackie'O Can had a secret meeting in Venice. A new, seventh member would be introduced to their circle. All I had to investigate was when and where the meeting would take place. My intuition didn't fail me… As I was walking around, I found myself looking at a house. A gondolier's mother obviously had just finished her laundry, I thought, because 7 gondolier's shirts were hanging by the rope… I knew I was in the right place the right time.
Read MoreReconstruction
She had a twin sister. She didn't know I knew about it. Which one I was supposed to investigate? I wasn't sure…
Read MoreSakura
The cherry trees were in full bloom and beautiful sakura -cherry blossoms- was all that the eye could see. The sakura omnipresence was so real that it became surreal. My assignment had brought me to Kyoto and my subject was Maria, a fellow investigator who lived there incognito for the last 10 years. In any other place I would have recognised her by her zen energy and poise, but in Kyoto I had to look for the Woman Who Drinks Cappuccino. She was the only one - I am immencely grateful to my loyal helpers Juanita and Lupe, who never fail to provide me with smart clues in order to find my subjects quickly and painfully. By then, I was at the end of a long cycle of investigations and I was really tired… I was thinking that maybe my work was over and my greatest desire was to leave. I met her while the beautiful sound of the traditional Sakura was filling my ears and it was the only music I wished to hear. A strange thought passed through my mind: all I could see and hear was sakura… if only I could speak it too… I opened my mouth and spoke incessantly for 7 hours. Was I saying my last goodbye to my subjects through the painful dance of my vocal chords? (A mexican brujo fellow photographic investigator had once said to me that a warrior investigator always performs a magnificent dance at the end.) I don't really know, I wasn't thinking, just speaking. I knew she was there to investigate me and i was confident she would not be able to… Not with her camera anyway. An experienced photographic investigator knows how to keep her secrets. The only way she could outsmart me was if she carried a tape recorder… Did she? If she did, I would come back only to find out if indeed there was sakura in my speech...
Read MoreHands
Investigating cold coffee drinking people on a cloudy spring day listening to the amazing Dave Holland's album with Pepe Habichuela, "Hands". And realising that there's a lot to be said about hands…
Read MoreSecret messages
All along this particular photographic investigation, the words from ELO's "Secret messages" were playing again and again in my head: "Those secret messages that spill
Into the air from far away, So far away, A flowing river of illusion, Running with confusion, Never gone - it goes on and on. The secret messages are calling to me endlessly, They call to me across the air, The messages across the atmosphere
They whisper in your ear, they're calling everywhere".
The bodyguard
Just a routine photographic investigation that took place in New York, about a woman named Eve who was always in the company of her faithful bodyguard -and friend- Kay B. My subject was the Eve woman, but my gut told me it was all about the bodyguard...
Read MoreThe Panama papers
My only clue was that she used exclusively panama rolling papers for her cigarettes. Things like that may seem insignificant to an untrained observer, but they make an experienced photographic investigator's life much easier… All I had to do was follow the imprint that the smell of the panama papers left everywhere they were used -sometimes for weeks- and wait. As it must be obvious to you by now, a successful photographic investigator must sharpen all of her senses with diligence, discipline and determination with every change she gets so that she is always ready to follow a sensory lead instantly. Of course the objective of my investigation about this particular subject was totally unrelated to the panama papers, but thank god she used them.
Read MoreMurder by poets
Photographically investigating crimes was what I did best. Murder was my favourite crime though…
Read MoreSpring allergies
A crazy wind was blowing from the South East and everybody knew this meant trouble. In addition to the bad omens of this morning, the wind brought with it too much african dust and the atmosphere was otherworldly… It was also the beginning of spring and the person I was supposed to investigate was suffering from spring allergies. As a photographic investigator, I hate it when my subjects suffer, but I must admit that intense situations make my investigation more effective. A sneeze says more that you can imagine about a person, believe me…
Read MoreOut of the past
"I never saw her in the daytime. We seemed to live by night. What was left of the day went away like a pack of cigarettes you smoked. I didn't know where she lived. I never followed her. All I ever had to go on was a place and time to see her again. I don't know what we were waiting for. Maybe we thought the world would end. Maybe we thought it was a dream and we'd wake up with a hangover in Niagara Falls. I wired Whit but I didn't tell him. 'I'm in Acapulco,' I said. 'I wish you were here.' And every night I went to meet her. How did I know she'd ever show up? I didn't. What stopped her from taking a boat to Chile or Guatemala? Nothing. How big a chump can you get to be? I was finding out. And then she'd come along like school was out, and everything else was just a stone which sailed at the sea". Scenes from one of the best film noir ever made, Jaques Tourneur's 1947 "Out of the Past" were flashing inside my head while I was investigating this "embarrassingly beautiful woman" -to quote one of "Il Mister"'s (my most famous subject) favourite expressions... This time I could not risk the slightest hint about the place or the reasons concerning this photographic investigation, it was too dangerous. But the narration of Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum) about his femme fatale Kathie (Jane Greer) seemed most appropriate...
Read MoreThe flight of the eagle
Or the dance of observing… This performance made me think Krishnamurti's words from The "Flight of the Eagle" (1969): "One cannot learn about oneself unless one is free, free so that one can observe, not according to any pattern, formula or concept, but actually observe oneself as one is. That observation, that perception, that seeing, brings about its own discipline and learning; in that there is no conforming, imitation, suppression or control whatsoever - and in that there is great beauty. Our minds are conditioned - that is an obvious fact - conditioned by a particular culture or society, influenced by various impressions, by the strains and stresses of relationships, by economic, climatic, educational factors, by religious conformity and so on. Our minds are trained to accept fear and to escape, if we can, from that fear, never being able to resolve, totally and completely, the whole nature and structure of fear. So our first question is: can the mind, so heavily burdened, resolve completely, not only its conditioning, but also its fears? Because it is fear that makes us accept conditioning".
Read MoreIs it a crime?
Or is it a poem? That was the question all along.
Read MoreFoolish love
...I must say I always have loved the "liberation point". The moment when the illusion collapses. Not only because it gives equally good investigative portraits, but because it's most promising: who knows? If one illusion collapses today, maybe another one, more important will collapse tomorrow. Something to meditate on…
Read MoreBlade runner
I felt a little like one… Of course my mission was completely different -and I wasn't Deckard, although she looked a lot like Rachael… I had to follow her from Paris to the little island of Giudeca, in Venice. She was beautiful and she looked slightly sad and very innocent, but I didn't feel guilty. After all, my mission was not only to investigate her but to protect her as well. This time I had to use the help of two of my associates -the Fox and the Mister. They were old subjects of mine that became good friends and valuable colleagues. Both male and very attractive, they were the perfect decoy… Beautiful women rarely say no to handsome male photographers who offer to make their portraits. I called, they responded, and so we proceeded. It was a complete success. Although in my shots it seems like she is sometimes looking at my lens, the truth is that she didn't even glance at me. I don't think she saw me at all. Of course the fact that I was equipped only with my faithful Ricoh GR, helped a lot. Big lenses have a strong impact on beautiful subjects. I felt invisible, totally absent and powerful. Something you couldn't say about Deckard…
Read MorePoems & Crimes
It was the name of an art bar in Athens. My photographic investigation was surrounded by mystery because, this time, I had to find out for myself who my subjects were. My employer could not disclose that information and although it might seem unusual, I knew it was for safety reasons -my safety. It was one of those times when conceptual projections could not only mislead you, but kill you. So, I entered the bar without expectations and preconceptions, without clinging to thoughts. I was late for the reading of erotic poetry. But I knew instantaneously that my subjects would come to me. I went to the garden. The name of the bar clearly suggested that after the poetry reading some sort of crime would take place. Without expectations of an Agatha Christie plot -but secretly hoping for it, I must admit- I waited. My connection, Dorian loaded a roll of film in his camera. That was the signal. I got up, approached his table and tripped. Four arms reached out for me. The two belonged to a beautiful male creature, the Dandy. In his vintage diamond cufflinks I could read the word "Poems" in cryptic writing. The other two belonged to a sparkling female creature, the Therapist. In her necklace the word "Crimes" was featuring in the same cryptic manner. I knew then that Poems and Crimes were the names of two families of people whose role though, remained to be discovered. One thing I knew with certainty: I had to shoot them both. Since the beginning of my career as a photographic investigator, it was always clear to me that each investigation could be my last one. My intuition told me that this time the possibilities were greater. I took out my camera and when the luminosity of these magnificent beings shone upon me I recognised it as the inner radiance of my own mind.
Read MoreI need a hero...
It was Valentines Day and for some unknown reason, all the heroes were out of town. Some said it was because of an unscheduled hero meeting. It wasn't a pretty sight. My subject had a hero date that afternoon and she was disappointed. But that worked well for me. Disappointment is more eloquent as far as a photographic investigation goes. My subject tried to be open minded about it and check out the non-hero population. But the disappointment escalated and it got to a point were it woke up her sense of humour. That date could be rescheduled, after all…
Read MoreEvanescence
That's what her brand of cigarettes was called. They were triggering her ability to disappear whenever she wanted to. That was her special gift. And that's why she had escaped the attention of other photographic investigators for so long. Not mine of course. The task was simple. Shoot her the moment she disappears and wait to see her reappear… because disappearing is understood, it's the reappearing that puzzled me. The mission was a success, but, then, you will never know if I am telling the truth. And I hope that you will also find it hard to believe that I have stolen some of her cigarettes while she was gone…
Read MoreCasablanca
She was the woman with no face. Simply because nobody was able to take a shot at it. Nobody knew what exactly happened to those who did, but everybody knew that they ended up in "Casablanca". Whether Casablanca was a night club, a dungeon or a concept, remained to be discovered. All I had to do was follow her and try to take that shot. I was feeling fearless that morning. Suddenly, I realised that The Fox was walking next to me. He had probably the same intention. I decided to let him take the first shot. Then, by simply following him, I would find out about Casablanca. It wasn't a bad plan. Not bad at all. But I will talk more about what happened to The Fox in a future post…
Read More