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Astrology for coffee is like sympathy for tea... a perfect match that doesn't exclude the presence of an occasional cigarette which promotes a deeper understanding of the planetary movements. Besides, investigating an astrology reader is always more fun over coffee. My assignment was to investigate the moment of realisation that the prediction were correct, and I think it went pretty well...
Read MoreMy intention was to fool my employers that this investigation had taken place at night somewhere in Giudecca, in Venice... My subject, a woman of mystery, didn't give me any trouble, it was almost as if we had planned a photo shooting... Truffaut's film gave me the idea for the deception but I couldn't go through with it... Underexposing an underexposed situation seemed to me ironic and pointless... It wouldn't be the first time that an investigation would take a different twist... I decided to follow that one to see where it goes...
Read MoreMister Minimal had a whole chapter for himself in my photographic investigations' book... Elusive, mysterious, a published photographer, very rich and very loved, he was called by many "The King of Venice". He was also one of my favourite subjects and a very lucky man. Let's face it: being investigates 3-4 times a year by a photographic investigator as myself is a rare thing! Mister Minimal always knows when he is being investigated but never shows it. That's one of the things that make him a great subject. As well as the fact that he likes to walk ahead of everybody, preferably in empty narrow streets, so his minimalism is easy to capture. Mister Minimal's photographic style is a projection of his true self. Beautiful minimal black and white empty spaces that suggest a welcoming heart, an unprejudiced mind and an openness of spirit. And although my sources tell me that from time to time he is letting the troubles of his earthly existence carry him in the crowded frames of worry and fear, I can always see him walking the sunlit path of great, pure, yet elusive, minimalism...
Read MoreShe wasn't responsible for a war but I had to investigate her all the same... Another mysterious figure that was easier to locate than I thought... I just had to go to Troy, a great publishing house in Santiago, Chile. An experienced photographic investigator like me is always ready to defy jet lag and circadian circles to complete her mission. She was renown writer of fantasy novels and an exquisite cook. I had read the novels but never tried the food, so it was imperative that this investigation would be a close one. So I met her, befriended her, investigated her and, yes, I enjoyed her cooking. An delicious investigation, to say the least...
Read MoreInvestigating a woman in extremely noir circumstances... Brought to mind "Dark Passage", starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacaull... for obvious reasons to a film noir lover...
Read MoreThere may be trouble ahead
But while there's music and moonlight and love and romance
Let's face the music and dance
Before the fiddlers have fled
Before they ask us to pay the bill and while we still have the chance
Let's face the music and dance
Soon we'll be without the moon, humming a different tune and then
There may be teardrops to shed
So while there's moonlight and music and love and romance
Let's face the music and dance
I was investigating a telenovela producer who had an unusual vision: create a telenovela without intrigues, without passions and lies and without suspense. He had decided that her series would be about loving friends and their encounters at work, having coffee, smoking, talking about their cats and writing philosophy articles... No desperate love affairs, no cheating, no crimes... All I had to do was follow the actors. The name of the telenovela would be "Amigas" and these shots are from the coffee breaks... And they were many...
Read MoreTime travel leaves traces and disturbances in the universe - every time traveller, Doctor Who fan and intergalactic photographic investigator knows it. This is why you cannot travel in time too much too soon, because of the imminent danger that this universe -and maybe others- will implode... That is why caution is needed. I was trained to investigate people who leave time travel traces and this is my latest investigation on this subject...
Read MoreSometimes I just use film noir titles to name my photographic investigations... And Angel Face was a classic...
"It's not what you are looking at that matters, it's what you see" said David Henry Thoreau (I think he said it that way...) and I found myself agreeing with him every day. Especially while I was investigating a fellow photographic investigator who pretended to be an astrologer in order to investigate a spy who was posing as an astrology review publisher. She had an magazine editorial background so she knew her way into a publishing company. From the first moment her view (as well as her photographic evidence) was clouded by her past experiences working in magazines (which were very intense in a good and in a bad way). Are we really capable to look with eyes wide open what lies before us and see it clearly, without the cloud of prejudice, without fear of the repetition of past experiences and with good faith that we can deal with it, whatever it is, if we confront it with love? I was doing that with more or less success since I became a photographic investigator... Would I be able to do it if I were in her position, and had to go back to my old profession? I don't know... These are some of the questions that this investigation awakened in me... Will they ever be answered? As I was coming back home after my investigation yesterday, I "saw" me (or anyone else) in an old age, a little before dying, having all the answers I could get in that lifetime, talking to my younger self... "All that worrying was totally unnecessary, you know?..." I guess we all know that on a deeper level... To apply it in everyday life is the challenge.
Read MoreShe was Mister Minimal's cousin. According to an oracle, she would become very rich one day, but she didn't know that. I did, of course. I was investigating her, a subject who was very lucky, but thought of herself as unlucky. The result was overwhelmingly... minimal. She was known as Mis (not Miss) Minimal and it was her who taught Mister Minimal all about being minimal... The only thing about her that wasn't minimal was her future fortune... but that was in a different timeline.
Read MoreSometimes everything flows. Unobstructed, smoothly like a warm August breeze that fills a house with all the windows open. Like a friendly presence caressing you, like a friendly fairy that makes the wind chimes sing. Investigating these subjects brought that sensation to my mind, which I very often feel in my home. Just flow.
Read MoreThat's what the mysterious note said... She was very reluctant to read it... Intuition, maybe... who knows? I was there, as always investigating looks and reactions. I wasn't there to find out what the content of the note was, that, I knew...
Read MoreAnd the living is easy... The leaving from Athens as well... I wasn't really investigating... Just enjoying that magical dreamy atmosphere, very characteristic of August... People getting ready for their summer vacation, other just coming back and others just dropping by before their next destination... Exchange of dreams, show of tan lines, friendly massages, bronzed legs, laughter, anticipation, the hope of the best holiday ever, impossible mathematic calculations in order to make money last... Just the old plain summer magic...
Read MoreI was hired again to investigate another strange group. After the love exhaling people of Santa Fe, now I had to follow the activities of a beauty measuring group in Denmark... There was nothing to it, really, all I had to do was to take shots of the beauty and of some of the people who were trying to measure it. I don't now if they succeeded, because they say it's not an easy task, but I was very satisfied with my work, which was the documentation of the process. And of the pure beauty, of course...
Read MoreShe was a pilot and she had her own plane. She was a kind of a spy, like I am, but she liked to call herself an "aerial explorer" -the way I like to call myself a "photographic investigator". So there was a connection there... but I had to investigate her anyway. She undertook very special -and highly secretive- missions, flying mostly over North America. And that's when "the incident" happened... They call it "the incident" because nobody knows exactly what happened, but everybody knows that it had something to do with flying too high over Brooklyn in one of her missions. That's when her plane had a mysterious loss of power -it functioned with a special (and unknown) kind of drive- which forced her to make an emergency landing in Anchorage, Alaska. I met her on a greek island, 6 months after "the incident". I was to find out what the incident was and was she was doing in Greece. But all you have to do is look at my photographic investigation shots...
Read MoreThe oracle was consulted because the situation was unclear. In cases like this an experienced photographic investigator asks help from her Higher Self through her favourite divinatory method. This time for me it was the I-Ching. The hexagram 31 it was then: "The Influence of the Strong Over the Weak". "All success in human relationships depends upon the proper attraction between persons. The leader is attracted to his followers and the followers are attracted to the leader. The strong are attracted to the weak and the weak are attracted to the strong". And the maxim: "When seeking advice, a person must remain open-minded and receptive". Suddenly it was all very clear.
Read MoreExpressions can be revealing, but they can be deceptive too... But an experienced photographic investigator can never be misled... Because she knows the difference between investigating and interpreting... An investigation must always be conducted without expectations and without preconceived ideas about the subject... a good investigation is like the very first investigation... one can never know where it will lead. This way, the very notion of misleading a photographic investigator is automatically "self-cancelled".
Read MoreShe was a Woman Without a Face and my only clue was: "Follow the rings" -whatever that meant. Of course, as soon as I located her, I knew... She could change her face no more than 3 times in 24 hours. And every time she had to use one of the 3 rings she wore. She could acquire one more ring -after a series of trials and rites i don't want to know nothing about- and that would place her at the top of the hierarchy of her kind, which was a very big deal. I guess that's why I was chosen to photographically investigate her. It was the eve of her great "test". I wholeheartedly hoped that she survived it...
Read MoreAnother of Nicoletta's magical garments... It was a real genie... A helper that granted wishes. How many, only the lucky ones who wear it can say...
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