monochrome
A forgotten photographic investigation of a fellow photographer, Maria, during a hot August day in the museum of the Acropolis, which I always find most inspiring for portraits of interesting people. The secret? A magical grey wall that acts as a black hole for everything else except the emotional depth of my subject. Not anybody can be photographically investigated there…
Read MoreA photographic investigator always has warm relations with people that most would call “unconventional”. Like -in this case- tarot readers and fortune tellers. It was in a meeting with a tarot reader that he pointed out that my spirit animal for the month of May would be the bat. I wouldn’t really know what to do with this information if at the same moment I were not browsing through one of my latest photographic investigations: the girl with the bat on her blouse. And then that famous sonnet from Shakespeare came to mind:
Read MoreA photographic investigator arrives at certain realisations sooner or later because they hate waisting their time -they are like this by nature. Yet they very often do. And they get frustrated. I mean, what is important is what you think of you. There is a law in life, the law of assumption. You are what you assume to be. Why not assume you are the person you would like to be -for a change? Just to see what happens… If you can’t help yourself how could anyone help you? And why should they… You operate your mind and your mind creates all that exists in your world. Isn’t it time to realise it and stop waisting your life day by day? I don’t know who said it but it made an impression to me: “Most people see life as bad weather: they wait for it to pass”. Maybe stop doing this now? Maybe shut the TV? Maybe stop paying attention to your mind chatter? Maybe stop recreating yesterday’s undesirable conditions? Just a photographic investigator’s suggestions.
Read MoreA photographic investigator has always a keen eye for elegant fashion. In this assignment I investigated 3 women and their excellent, minimalist fashion statements in the 2018 Venice Biennale. Just in case you were wondering what to wear while visiting art galleries in Venice. Go shopping, be creative: good things are coming very soon!
Read MoreLeonardo’s “Mona Lisa” wasn’t the portrait of Mona Lisa Gherardini, wive of Francesco del Giocondo. It was a portrait of Leonardo’s mother. And it was the only painting that Leonardo always carried with him, wherever he went. Of course, this is just another theory (although supported by the actual historic evidence) as only Leonardo knew the truth. But in the case of the modern portrait of Mona Lisa with the sunglasses, the model was alive and could be found. That was my new assignment. And I have managed to photographically investigate her without arising suspicions. Like all of us, she was closer to her original self that she could ever have imagined…
Read MoreVery often a photographic investigator embarks on an investigative assignment after receiving a cryptic message or some kind of intuitive guidance. In this case it was a message hidden in a comment on a youtube channel. I immediately knew what I had to do and where to find my subject, although this would require another time displacement. But I was used to time travel and I had the time to replenish my energy, anyway, after so many months without inter-dimensional movements. So, no problems.
Read MoreThe morning just after another month of lockdown was announced, way before sunrise. Away from my subjects and without assignments, I was looking at older photographic investigations that I thought not successful. Suddenly, I found myself struggling to comprehend the expression “not successful”. Maybe they were investigations that I felt uncomfortable with, that I thought that they would not be well received -”by whom?'“, I asked myself. Or photographic investigations that I simply didn’t like or that possibly generated an unease, a discomfort in me. Just like I sometimes feel when I am confronting myself, at times of peace and silence such as these. When I am seeing my human condition. The human condition. Photographic investigations are really parts of the photographic investigator’s self, of her condition. Usually she is running away from some part of them, she is keeping them unpublished, she resents them, she puts them in the recycling bin. But the recycling bin recycles, it does not release or dissolve. This beautiful, peaceful morning, before sunlight made this bright star in the east disappear, I just looked at them and accepted them for what they were: a part of the human condition. Just that. And I realised that acceptance was working much better than struggle. And then I saw something vibrant, silent, beautiful and perfect. As is the canvas in which all photographic investigations are taking place.
Read MoreAn older, unpublished photographic investigation that became contemporary -in a way that only I know- under the light of Lester Levenson’s words: “We should have no wants. Then we are never in trouble.”
Read MoreMy latest assignment was a girl-wonder named Natalia, the daughter of a well investigated subject of mine, Nadia. She was the protagonist of many of my previous photographic investigations like “The girl from Ipanema”, “The long good bye”, “The fantastic smile method” and a few others… Nadia was back and along came the amazing child who made it clear, only a few moments into our first encounter, that she was a photographic investigator herself. I immediately foresaw many more fruitful photographic encounters. Who would be photographically investigating who now, is a whole new subject by itself.
Read MoreI was investigating a classic type of entanglement: things that were happening in February suddenly appeared to be announced in a poster of last year’s October. My subjects thought that it was a mistake because they thought that nothing moves faster than the speed of light. Although quantum physics is an essential part of a photographic investigator’s life (especially an inter-dimensional one), it’s knowledge is not mandatory requirement in being qualified as a potential subject. Thank God.
Read MoreA photographic investigator knows -after having watched numerous subjects- that Florence Scovel Shinn has been right all along: There is an immediate supply for every demand if you show active faith. That means, being sure that everything you desire or require is already on your pathway and giving thanks for this endless supply that is at your disposal at any time. Acting on faith, if a subjects needs money, she buys a bigger wallet, if she wants an adventurous travel she buys an amazing suitcase, if she wants success, she assumes the quality of a successful person. “I see clearly my inexhaustible supply” is her mantra.
Read MoreSometimes a photographic investigation takes place in the past but becomes what it is in the present. Which, of course, is all there is. In this case, the present was dominated by frustration and an urgent and desperate need for escape, which of course was a helpless situation - every form of restriction is an illusion and how can you escape an illusion that you have created? Especially when it contains horrific memories of the past and the fear that it is repeating itself… It’s a vicious circle really. In that context, trying to figure out what this photographic investigation was all about, I started browsing “The wisdom of insecurity” by Alan Watts. And the following passage made me stop. And all the desperation and need to escape just collapsed into their native nothingness: “…as a matter of fact, you cannot compare this present experience with a past experience. You can only compare it with a memory of the past, which is a part of the present experience. When you see clearly that memory is a form of present experience, it will be obvious that trying to separate yourself from this experience is as impossible as trying to make your teeth bite themselves. […]To understand this is to realize that life is entirely momentary, that there is neither permanence nor security, and that there is no “I” which can be protected”.
Read MoreWhile the original Bermuda triangle was an almost forgotten memory due to the fact that the phenomena that were widely experienced in this part of the Atlantic had come to an abrupt end thanks to the removal from the seabed of the Atlantean crystal that was causing them, many smaller ones were formed almost simultaneously. They started to move freely, bending space and time, serving only as clues or landmarks for photographic investigators. Some of us have quantum triangle detectors that can localise them in case that they are connected with some important photographic investigation, like this one.
Read MoreA photographic investigation that took place in a distant dimension, in the year 2020, the Year of The Mask according to the Lifestyle Horoscope, which, apparently, plays an important role in the way people of this dimension choose their accessories.
Read MoreThis photographic investigation would be better described as another unsuccessful attempt to prove that a weekend can actually be lost… Because nothing real can be lost and nothing unreal exists. Real or unreal, this I leave up to you…
Read MoreFar far away is an invention of the mind. Because, in reality there is no “there”, there is only “here”. Likewise, there no “then”, there is only “now”.
Read MoreIn almost half of my photographic investigations my subjects have to be hunted down, trapped or deceived even, in order to reveal the secret that my mysterious employers hire me to unveil. And as you know, most of the times that secret is unknown to me and I have to work following clues and hints. So, every assignment is in a way, the shooting of a film noir, following an improvised scenario that me and my subjects write and direct on the spot. But in the great majority of the cases the subjects are clearly in a “fight or flight” mode, so there is action and suspense as I try to “convince” them -with great subtlety, of course- to get into a “stay and play” mode. This photographic investigation was different though, in more than one ways. The one you are allowed to know is that this subject was a chameleon -as you will see in my following posts- , she knew I was investigating her and she had no fear. her natural state was already :stay and play”. Undoubtedly, a challenge for a photographic investigator like me… But them, I can handle anything…
Read MoreI was revisiting a photographic investigation and then I heard a recording of a repeated affirmation by Dr Joseph Murphy: “I am the captain of my soul, I am the master of my fate. For my thoughts and feelings are my destiny”. It made sense. It makes sense.
Read MoreA photographic investigator knows that the most revealing and successful photographic investigations are the ones that happen in between assignments, the ones that she doesn’t care how they will end up or the ones that are already done and therefore are considered no big deal.
Read MorePrentice Mulford said: “The man -or woman- who succeeds must always in mind or imagination, live, move, think and act as if he -or she- had gained that success, or he -or she- will never gain it”. I was hired to photographically investigate Zenobia’s journey to the manifestation of her desires. “Something new, something wonderful” was the theme of the investigation. And a photographic investigator helps her subjects through manifestation having faith in them. “Faith is the power to believe and the power to see”, Prentice Mulford also said…
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