monochrome
Photographing people drinking coffee or smoking is a routine for a photographic investigator… Photographing them eating cookies on the other hand is more challenging and a great deal more revealing. One way or the other, most photographic subjects have mastered the art of gesturing while enjoying a coffee or a smoke. Cookies are more unconventional. But I think much more enjoyable both for my subjects and me.
Read MoreBill Evans Trio was playing "It might as well be spring"on the radio. It was 1962 in a parallel dimension and the beginning of December was resembling more like the end of March. Her name was Martha Jones and she enjoyed her cold coffee in the middle of this springlike winter along with a cigarette. Cigarette smoking was strongly encouraged at this time in this dimension and that was making my investigations much more easy, because subjects are more relaxed when they smoke. I never rally knew who she was, but that wasn't my job anyway.
Read MoreNovember was surprisingly warm, more like the end of April… But people are never satisfied, so it was also surprisingly blue, as if everyone was expecting the cold to blame for their misery and misfortunes… So blue it was… And since November was so disappointing, suddenly, there was a Christmas yearning and everyone was starting to think about nice things they could do for one another… presents, phone calls, invitations, bottles of wine, encouragements, kind words, friendships restored. And all this because nothing bad ever comes from blue…
Read MoreAgent Cooper (you know, in Twin Peaks) liked his coffee "black like midnight on a moonless night". In my photographic investigations I have discovered that the blacker the coffee, the stronger it's meditative power… It's one of the great mysteries of coffee and photography. For me it is easier to investigate my subjects drinking coffee, so I notice these things… Hopefully the fellow photographic investigator of the future will find my observations useful.
Read MoreSometimes a photographic investigator realises that all their assignments, all their investigations and all their subjects are not "real"… they are just movements, actions, thoughts and characters in a dream. We do we continue to investigate then? I will try to answer this to another post.
Read MoreThe Vappa Light is essential to space and especially, time travel. It is the only known -to a very few, I assure you- way to cross great distances, not only interstellar and inter dimensional, but also emotional and psychic, in both space and time, without serious consequences. Not very serious anyway… Because time travel has always some consequences. The Vappa Light Drive has it's own will and only when it agrees with the will and the intentions of it's "user" something can happen. It can be approached in a few very distinct and very mystical places around the world and fate has led me to one of it's sources, following a tip about a job. It was a routine photographic investigation, but, what I did not know at the time was that I would be given the opportunity to "catch" my subject moments before a Vappa Light trip would take place. In the shots you can see the traveller girl bathing in it. A few moments later she disappeared.
Read More“The girl gave him a look which ought to have stuck at least four inches out of his back.” I am just quoting Raymond Chandler in "The long goodbye". I was in Ipanema again and the girl was saying goodbye. She was not originally my subject but she became one of the best ones, I must say… She will be missed.
There are many mystic places in Venice. Photographic Investigators prefer them because, let's face it, it's a mystic job… Mystic places have also a kind of magical effect on a photographic investigator's shots… they tend to speed up the process of the investigation. Also, they surround the investigator with a protective "bubble", which is also very appreciated because in this kind of work you need secrecy and discreteness. My favourite is the pizzeria "Alle Zattere", in Dorsoduro. It has a remarkable ability to attract my subjects so I can shoot them. This is very cool. So I seat there for coffee or lunch and they just come to me. And it makes the best pizza this photographic investigator has ever tasted. I am mostly a vegetarian, but I can never resist Alle Zattere's pizza con salsiccia & provolone… undoubtedly, a mystical experience. Here are some shots while I was waiting for my subjects, a beautiful morning Alle Zattere, with a very mystic "controluce", having a cappuccino…
Read MoreThis was the password phrase. I was investigating "The woman without a face", a notorious and mysterious ufologist and ancient civilisations specialist who had recently made a groundbreaking discovery… She was hiding in Plain Sight, a coffee shop that everybody could see but only the password would get you in. It was a 4 shots investigation and I can say one thing with certainty: she had beautiful hands.
Read MoreShe was known by the name of Penthesilea, the tragic, beautiful and heroic queen of the Amazons. Achilleas fell in love with her after he killed her in the Trojan War… The Roman poet Vergil wrote of her: "The ferocious Penthesilea, gold belt fastened beneath her exposed breast, leads her battle-lines of Amazons with their crescent light-shields… a warriors, a maiden who dares to fight with men". And he called her "Bellatrix". I investigated her in 4 shots. An Amazon Queen would'nt allow me more than this, anyway…
Read More... She didn't know she was the kind of girl you meet in a film noir's hot summer day passing through a gas station or a general store, the kind of girl you ask for directions, or if she has seen the guy you're looking for… She didn't know she was the sunny kind of girl that fate had put in that particular spot as a last effort to make you abandon the search and go back… Because if you are a film noir hero, when you find what you're looking for, you wish you didn't… Her name was Sunday and that proved that there are no coincidences...
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