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.
A photographic investigation in a parallel italian island-universe where every day is laundry day... everywhere. I was there to investigate laundries, obviously. Many of them go undetected by the untrained tourist eye... but they are lurking in the most unusual places as well as in the most obvious. An interesting quiz would be: "Try NOT to find the laundry".
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.
The job totally depended on it… He pretended to be a performer and the only way to investigate him was to pretend I was a celebrity photographer. It always works. But to do so, I needed sunlight coming through a window before sunset that particular evening. So it all depended on the weather in London that day, because that's where my photographic investigation was taking place. When I saw the clouds parting I knew no force in the 'verse could stop this investigation. The weather in London was agreeing with my intentions... and for that to happen, they just couldn't have been my intentions… I just thought they were. That reassured me even more.
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…
I found my subject in The Comet's Tail, a library bar in Tijuana. It seems that, in Baja California a surprising amount of drinkers likes to read, so library bars are quite common… She was known as "La Tijuanera" -not in Tijuana, obviously- and she was a poet. It wasn't the first time that I investigated poets. Unpredictable and sometimes dangerous subjects for most of my fellow photographic investigators, for me felt like investigating my little brothers and sisters: whatever surprises one would encounter investigating them, could also be encountered investigating one's self. But they were always pleasant. So I always investigated them with a certain kind of affection. Well… Tijuana wasn't the best place to be at that time and I had only an hour to investigate this little sister. It took me about 6 shots. I had a plane to catch…
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.)
"What do you want, what are you looking for?" A subject of mine -of course he didn't know he was my subject- asked me once… I just smiled at him. A Photographic Investigator in never looking for something and wants nothing. This way she finds herself constantly being offered all kinds of things, situations and investigative opportunities. Some she takes, others she choses not to. It's like being given presents all the time. Some wonderful, some useless or ugly. This attitude is based in a fundamental truth that every serious photographic investigator -like any kind of investigator, in this matter- is aware of: If you are looking for nothing in particular there are good chances that you will find something. And this Photographic Investigators always does…
It was the day when 6 of my most mysterious and dangerous subjects, Il Mister, The Fox, The Muse, El Guapo, Eleonora Krane and Jackie'O Can had a secret meeting in Venice. A new, seventh member would be introduced to their circle. All I had to investigate was when and where the meeting would take place. My intuition didn't fail me… As I was walking around, I found myself looking at a house. A gondolier's mother obviously had just finished her laundry, I thought, because 7 gondolier's shirts were hanging by the rope… I knew I was in the right place the right time.
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".
