My investigation ended because of a misunderstanding that happened in Thailand. They were expecting James Bond and Signore Bon was desperately seeking refuge. You see, he also was a spy, but a coffee spy. He was ruthlessly hunted down by a demented coffee lord in Guatemala because he had stolen the secret of the most expensive coffee in the world. For years he managed to successfully hide his identity posing as a gondolier and a photographer in Venice. That's where I investigated him. I was working for a woman that was willing to pay me his weight in gold in order to get her hands on that coffee secret. And she wanted to keep him alive, which was very important to me - "live and keep them alive" was my moto... It all went well - or so I though. And just when I was sure he had fallen into my trap, il Signore Bon disappeared. I looked for him in vain. I even solicited the help of powerful underground characters of Venice like El Guapo, Il Mister and La Regina that had been my subjects in the past. Nothing. And then, one morning, I received a post card from Thailand. All it said was: "My name is Bon. Signore Bon". Intuitively, I opened the TV. In Thailand they were celebrating Mister Bond's arrival... I knew it was him. I packed my suitcase and went to the vaporetto station. And then I realised I was being watched. I knew it was too risky to ask for El Guapo and il Mister's help... It was obvious I could not follow Signore Bon to Thailand. A photographic investigator has to be faithful to her principles... "Live and keep them alive"... remember? Fortunately my client had payed me a generous amount in advance and I had already explained to her the risks of my profession. I headed to the airport anyway. In my iPod Christina Train was singing "I wanna live in LA"... Why not? I thought... LA it was then... and after a few months maybe Hilo, Hawaii... I always loved that place...
She was my biggest rival's secretary. That meant that she knew all his secrets. The truth is he wasn't really a rival... more of a rival wannabe... I don't have rivals. But I had a difficult assignment and my subject was missing in action... He knew all about her, so I thought it would be easier to investigate his secretary. The secretary is a most important character in a situation where a photographic investigator is involved... like in a film noir. Needless to say, I don't have one. My faithful helpers, Juanita and Lupe do the job. But again, they can't be investigated by my "rivals"... they are cats. I watched one of my favourite film noir movies, The Dark Corner, for inspiration. Lusille Ball was playing the investigator's secretary.
This time my photographic investigation was taking place in Martinique and I wasn't complaining… This paradise was once known as "Madinina", that means "island of flowers". And I found plenty. It was one of those "treasure hunt" style photographic assignments… in this case the investigator must find out where the investigation is happening and what she is supposed to investigate. The provided clue was "Caribbean flowers" and for me it was very easy. Having a life long affection towards exotic paradises, I knew all about their history and traditions. And a beer with one's subjects after the end of a long investigation was one of them…
Gran Canyon was my next stop. I stayed in the Nevada Inn. A special place because it's orientation was such that everything and everybody was bathed in shades of Gran Canyon orange, the colour of Nevada -as I was told by the two girls that I ended up investigating. Old habits die hard.
Her name wasn't Lola and she wasn't a show girl... But an assignment that sends you to Brazil is always welcome. Isabel was an anthropologist who worked as a lifeguard in Copacabana... While I was investigating, the group Ordinarius was performing live their wonderful version of "Agua de Beber" and a salty breeze from the ocean was advising me not to start investigating before drinking my caipirinha.... When a sea breeze advises, I always listen...
A coloured photographic investigation that was supposed to happen in California, in the 70's. Sometimes I take assignments from the past. Never so far from the future, though…
I was hired to investigate a strange love exhaling group in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It's members were practising love exhaling exercises, under the pretext of the widely encouraged act of smoking. Smoking was cool and "safe" whereas acts of love weren't. The method consisted in inhaling all the pain and misery and the dark shades of the world -or of the surrounding environment- visualising them transforming into light and exhaling then as pure love (although in the eyes of many it looked just like exhaling smoke). One of my favourite assignments, since I love learning new skills while photographically investigating… Which reminds me… I have to go practise my exercises now…
Life is a good mexican telenovela. I know, because I love them. So I can't help but noticing that it is based on the same fundamental rules: 1. truth always reveals itself 2. nobody is absolutely without a heart 3. desires come true but are never what you expected them to be 4. obsessions drain your energy so that you will almost certainly need a plastic surgery before the telenovela ends (if it's a long one) 5. beauty opens all the doors 6. in the end, balance is restored 7. it's not real, it's just actors, costumes, a play and a director. Having shared this revelation with you, I'll go back watching Ramona, a great mexican telenovela from the late 90's starring Eduardo Palomo (R.I.P. our beloved Eduardo…). Even the most impartial and dedicated to observation photographic investigator has her soft spots… (Another telenovela characteristic: even though you are just a watcher, you feel affection for the characters. Ramona makes me cry.)
The cherry trees were in full bloom and beautiful sakura -cherry blossoms- was all that the eye could see. The sakura omnipresence was so real that it became surreal. My assignment had brought me to Kyoto and my subject was Maria, a fellow investigator who lived there incognito for the last 10 years. In any other place I would have recognised her by her zen energy and poise, but in Kyoto I had to look for the Woman Who Drinks Cappuccino. She was the only one - I am immencely grateful to my loyal helpers Juanita and Lupe, who never fail to provide me with smart clues in order to find my subjects quickly and painfully. By then, I was at the end of a long cycle of investigations and I was really tired… I was thinking that maybe my work was over and my greatest desire was to leave. I met her while the beautiful sound of the traditional Sakura was filling my ears and it was the only music I wished to hear. A strange thought passed through my mind: all I could see and hear was sakura… if only I could speak it too… I opened my mouth and spoke incessantly for 7 hours. Was I saying my last goodbye to my subjects through the painful dance of my vocal chords? (A mexican brujo fellow photographic investigator had once said to me that a warrior investigator always performs a magnificent dance at the end.) I don't really know, I wasn't thinking, just speaking. I knew she was there to investigate me and i was confident she would not be able to… Not with her camera anyway. An experienced photographic investigator knows how to keep her secrets. The only way she could outsmart me was if she carried a tape recorder… Did she? If she did, I would come back only to find out if indeed there was sakura in my speech...
A just love Noel Coward's song... Sometimes it's hard to say if an investigation is adjusting itself to the music or the music to the investigation. Just another of those things that a photographic investigator must find out by herself. That's why she travels alone.
Investigating cold coffee drinking people on a cloudy spring day listening to the amazing Dave Holland's album with Pepe Habichuela, "Hands". And realising that there's a lot to be said about hands…
All along this particular photographic investigation, the words from ELO's "Secret messages" were playing again and again in my head: "Those secret messages that spill Into the air from far away, So far away, A flowing river of illusion, Running with confusion, Never gone - it goes on and on.The secret messages are calling to me endlessly, They call to me across the air, The messages across the atmosphere They whisper in your ear, they're calling everywhere".
Just a routine photographic investigation that took place in New York, about a woman named Eve who was always in the company of her faithful bodyguard -and friend- Kay B. My subject was the Eve woman, but my gut told me it was all about the bodyguard...
My only clue was that she used exclusively panama rolling papers for her cigarettes. Things like that may seem insignificant to an untrained observer, but they make an experienced photographic investigator's life much easier… All I had to do was follow the imprint that the smell of the panama papers left everywhere they were used -sometimes for weeks- and wait. As it must be obvious to you by now, a successful photographic investigator must sharpen all of her senses with diligence, discipline and determination with every change she gets so that she is always ready to follow a sensory lead instantly. Of course the objective of my investigation about this particular subject was totally unrelated to the panama papers, but thank god she used them.
A crazy wind was blowing from the South East and everybody knew this meant trouble. In addition to the bad omens of this morning, the wind brought with it too much african dust and the atmosphere was otherworldly… It was also the beginning of spring and the person I was supposed to investigate was suffering from spring allergies. As a photographic investigator, I hate it when my subjects suffer, but I must admit that intense situations make my investigation more effective. A sneeze says more that you can imagine about a person, believe me…
"I never saw her in the daytime. We seemed to live by night. What was left of the day went away like a pack of cigarettes you smoked. I didn't know where she lived. I never followed her. All I ever had to go on was a place and time to see her again. I don't know what we were waiting for. Maybe we thought the world would end. Maybe we thought it was a dream and we'd wake up with a hangover in Niagara Falls. I wired Whit but I didn't tell him. 'I'm in Acapulco,' I said. 'I wish you were here.' And every night I went to meet her. How did I know she'd ever show up? I didn't. What stopped her from taking a boat to Chile or Guatemala? Nothing. How big a chump can you get to be? I was finding out. And then she'd come along like school was out, and everything else was just a stone which sailed at the sea". Scenes from one of the best film noir ever made, Jaques Tourneur's 1947 "Out of the Past" were flashing inside my head while I was investigating this "embarrassingly beautiful woman" -to quote one of "Il Mister"'s (my most famous subject) favourite expressions... This time I could not risk the slightest hint about the place or the reasons concerning this photographic investigation, it was too dangerous. But the narration of Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum) about his femme fatale Kathie (Jane Greer) seemed most appropriate...
