A photographic investigator does is not engaged all the time in traveling between dimensions or through time… She has mundane tasks to fulfil, just like any other “non photographic investigator” being. In that case I was reviewing a photographic investigation that took place some days before while I was steaming some organic broccoli and potatoes for my mother, listening at the same time an audiobook by Emily Cady, where telepathy was mentioned. My subject was a secret agent from a different time-space (I had investigated her so many times before but she always managed to surprise me). My conclusion (which came as an epiphany) after many investigations I did on her, was that surrealism and lack of coherence seemed to slow her down, giving me more time to photographically investigate her before she disappeared. Thus the title .
It was the afternoon of a busy day and my photographic investigation was taking place without me being fully aware of it, surrounded by the beautiful sounds of blackbirds and the sounds of the birds that I could hear in Takashi Kokubo’s album “Jamaica” that was the soundtrack of this assignment. Zenobia was tired and lacked oxygen. I didn’t go to the Jamaica soundscape to investigate, but I did it anyway.
Photographic Investigators love to watch old black and white films and thats what I was doing just before i re-investigated a photographic investigation that took place 5 years ago in Burano. My assignment then was the mysterious Jackie O’Can -you might remember her from previous blog posts- and after watching “The Crystal Ball”, a 1943 movie, I was inspired to look for more clues in this investigation. And I found them.
She was hiding behind a COVID silk mask that she wore -allegedly- to protect others from her lethal breath. My job was to photographically investigate her with the mask and I must admit that this was one of the most surreal assignments that had been given to me by my mysterious employers. It was a challenge. But I am an inter-dimensional photographic investigator and I tend to laugh in the face of challenge…
When my career as a photographic investigator started, i didn’t know it did. It was night time, I was in a bar and I was shooting casual portraits of Dorian K., a man that in the 1st of May of that year saved my life. Now that I think about it, maybe I was shooting him to show him that he did the right move saving me, although he didn’t have a choice - it was a compulsive move. This man proved to be an angel, a messenger on behalf of my mysterious “employers” that from that day on, started giving me mysterious assignments about people and places that needed to be photographically investigated, which I had to discover by myself, following cryptic leads and clues. (Up to this day, I haven’t discovered the identity of my mysterious employers but I loved each and every one of my assignments). The first clues were given to me that night by Dorian K. and at the same time my first photographic investigation was completed.
This photographic investigation took place 5 years ago in the einsteinian universe, but in the world of an inter-dimensional photographic investigator there is no time.
A few days before the lockdown, I was reading James Allen’s “As a Man thinketh”, a book that proved to be very helpful during the photographic investigation that took place then and the results of which you see here. The following quote reflects accurately the spirit of the investigation… “Man is buffeted by circumstances so long as he believes himself to be the creature of outside conditions, but when he realizes that he is a creative power, and that he may command the hidden soil and seeds of his being out of which circumstances grow, he then becomes the rightful master of himself. The outer world of circumstance shapes itself to the inner world of thought, and both pleasant and unpleasant external conditions are factors which make for the ultimate good of the individual. Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself.“
“Because I am what I am, I may be what I will to be. My individuality is one of the modes in which the Infinite expresses itself, and therefore I am myself that very power which I find to be the innermost within of all things.”
A photographic investigator is mostly interested the renewing of their mind while observing the renewing of their subjects mind, emerging fresh and vibrant after every photographic investigation. Complete forgetfulness seems to have a lot to do with this renewing… Like Prentice Mulford, in his book “Your forces and how to use them”, says: “To learn to forget is as necessary and useful as to learn to remember. We think of many things every day which it would be more profitable not to think of at all. To be able to forget is to be able to drive away the unseen force (thought) which is injuring us, and change it for a force (or order of thought) to benefit us.”
A photographic investigation very often looks like hunting or following appearances, the illusory world that we live in, but in reality is about standing still. A very powerful affirmation (by Florence Scovel Shinn) that I always use in the face of apparent adversity in my photographic investigations is: “I am unmoved by appearances, therefore appearances move”. And they always do.
A photographic investigator knows that her subjects have been instructed, early in their life, to start constructing a story about themselves -enriched over the years with bits of experience, failures, successes, oppressed feelings and desires- and then believe it to be true. So naturally they get trapped in that story, rarely managing to escape it’s limitations. But she also knows that in a twinkling of the eye this truth can be realised and the subjects can write a different story, preferably one of harmony, radiance, health, wealth, love and perfect self expression. A happy story.
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.
Zenobia 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.
I 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.
My 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…
My 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.
A 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…
I 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…
It 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.
This 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.
