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While a photographic investigator discovers the various facets of her subject’s true nature, she finds it helpful to watch old TV series. They provide inspiration and valuable assistance and clear her vision. This time it was Highway to Heaven, with an angel helping people in California. Somehow it seemed very appropriate.
Read MoreZenobia is not just the name of the warrior queen of Palmyra (or of her incarnation) but is also the name of a distant planet. It’s inhabitants have no real existence - they are various moods that make their presence known only by attaching themselves to the matching vibration of a visitor. I took my subject with me in yet another inter-dimensional journey in order to photographically investigate these Zenobian moods. You can see the results of my investigation.
Read MoreI photographically investigated Vera and her noir world after watching a great television version of Agatha Christie’s “A murder is announced”. This could have been the name of the investigation as the whole atmosphere was overflowed with a sense of secret, of something hidden. Well hidden, in Vera’s case.
Read MoreMy assignment was about another noir woman actor who liked to play to the theater but was born to play in old noir movies. To achieve that she had to time/dimension travel and there was only one photographic investigator who could trace her: me. As you know, I have a great experience in inter-dimensional travel, even though this leads to an inevitable depletion of my power. But with enough good rest in a sunny, tropical island, everything is restored. So, this investigation took place, with me full of solar energy , powerful and positive. Needless to say, I knew where my subject was even before dialing possible other-dimensional addresses. Conclusion: with enough solar power, everything is done instantly…
Read MoreLester Levenson said: “What we’re seeing out there is our own mind”. And this is the ultimate realisation of a photographic investigator…
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 MoreMy assignment was an interdimensional one, after a long time… I had to decline in taking this kind of assignments because of the energy drain that is caused to the photographic investigator by travelling to different dimensions and through time. But this one was very interesting -and I was feeling very strong and full of energy, after all. The portal was in the greek pavilion of the Venice Biennale -like so many are- and it was active only the last day of the Biennale. My task was to photographically investigate and follow a greek shadow that remained greek despite the nationality of the person who was casting it. It was taking their form, but not their nationality. Which, I guess was a tangible proof that nationality is not a real thing…
Read MoreMy assignment was to photographically investigate the latest incarnation of Zenobia, the beautiful, magnetic, powerful and rebel queen of Palmyra. She had assumed the identity of another legendary (but fictional) warrior woman, Xena (also known to TV watchers as Xena, the Warrior Princess). The choice of an alias, although sometimes unconscious, is never too far from the source and this proved to be of great assistance to me. The task of a photographic investigator is to uncover the unlimited, hidden and always powerful identity of her subjects, of which they usually have no memory. Fortunately, this is a temporary situation and the process is greatly speeded up after the resuming of the photographic investigation.
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 MoreThere is an infinite power, a universal consciousness that manifests herself as planets, worlds, people and cities and Venice comes right out of her radiant heart.
Read MoreI was listening to an Alan Watts lecture ( a very poetic one). He was describing his love of the water. For him, love of water equals love of life. And this is exactly how I feel. Many times I imagined myself living by the sea, in a tropical place and just be and work all day in the water. Live -and sleep even- in the water, if possible. Only I would not like it to be very cold (and that is why my fantasy is taking place in a tropical paradise). While I was working on this photographic investigation, having just returned from a wetter than usual Venice -after November’s exceptionally high tide- I had still very vivid the image of glass windows wet from the inside, as the water that was trapped-in tried to get out, trapping itself again in the windows. And in my mind I knew that years of concentrated resentment by the Venetians about the Disneyland quality of their city, were probably the reason the waters rise so high, to purify and clean. Seeing little boats filled with destroyed refrigerators and washing machines going up and down the canals was poetry as well, a poetry with the same surreal quality of Alan Watts’ lecture. But then, a photographic investigator is trained to see these things, and even report them, even though she knows that her Venetian friends will probably resent her views and deny to take responsibility for what was manifesting around them. As up, so down, as inside, so outside.
Read More“But everything exposed by the light becomes visible--and everything that is illuminated becomes a light”. Ephesians, 5:13. (Sometimes a photographic investigator has nothing to say).
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 MoreA photographic investigator often starts her day seeking inspiration and today was a Florence Scovel Shinn day. The quote that stuck to mind was the following: “The game of life is a game of boomerangs. Our thoughts, deeds and words return to us sooner or later with astounding accuracy.” Something to think about…
Read MoreI had in mind an Alan Watts lecture titled “Mind over mind”. A photographic investigator realises sooner or later that whenever the function or action of the mind is detected, a photographic investigation is impossible. And because trying to escape the mind is a function of the mind, ignoring it is the only way to go. This is really the measure of any fresh and original photographic investigation. The photographic investigator can’t dismiss the mind altogether, but the experienced one let it “think” it get’s it’s way, while the photographic investigation itself is about something else. Something ineffable, therefore untouched by the mind. Until it is published, of course…
Read MoreIt was the morning following a gloomy day and night, but it didn’t have to be. It could wonderfully be (and it was, actually) the first morning of an exciting new month. I remembered that Il Mister (a mysterious and gracious figure of Venice, a dear friend who is featuring regularly in my photographic investigations) said to me once that when he was down he was listening to the “L is for Lovers” album by Al Jarreau… Instant lift up. I put the CD on… and it worked. I didn’t have any fresh photographic investigation going on, so I decided to revisit an older one. There are always new things to see with a happier eye. I realised that, as Al says, “we’re in this love (and life) together”. Thank you Al, thank you Mister.
Read MoreThis photographic investigation reminded me the fantastic 1941 film noir with the beautiful Gene Tierney. The only clue that I had was the word “gesture” and although I was very well acquainted with my human subject, I had no idea why I was investigating her for the 100th time… The life of a photographic investigator is full of unresolved mysteries that, just as it occurs in a good film noir, are answered unexpectedly at the end of the film after a plot twist that leaves even the most experienced viewer completely silent. The same thing happened to me at the end of this photographic investigation that “informed” me why it happened the way it happened, at the very end.
Read MoreKrishnamurti said: “Freedom is space and space is order”. In my photographic investigations I have realised that space is owned and cannot possibly be rented. But my assignment was to photographically investigate some art installations in the island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, to find out first hand if there was any truth to that statement. As I was following my oblivious subject, what I thought that it was a mind-block proved to be totally liberating. In the complete silence of the installation I realised something else that Krishnamurti has said in The Book of Life: “Having already done everything possible to find the answer, the mind becomes spontaneously quiet. There is an awareness without choice, without any demand, an awareness in which there is no anxiety; and in that state of mind there is perception. It is this perception alone that will resolve all our problems”.
Read MoreAccording to Douglas Adams the answer to life, the universe and everything is 42. According to Angie Stergio, the Photographic Investigator the answer is 214.
Read MoreGenevieve Behrend said: “Do not be afraid to be your true self, for everything you want, wants you”. The Samba girls were fearless. It was Friday the 13th with a full moon when I decided to publish the results of this photographic investigation and as I was gazing upon them, I realised that I have never photographically investigated subjects that I did not love or admire, even though many times these subjects were strangers to me. The Samba girls I knew well, but in a strange way I found myself in the position to rediscover them again and again, after every photographic investigation. An amazing and extraordinary experience, every time.
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