I was photographically investigating a fellow photographic investigator who was cursed with betrayal in her relationships and she always had monochrome summers. It was a repeating theme -karmic, according to her- to which she had resigned a long time ago. She was very rich but by then she knew not to show her wealth to people whom she suspected not to be sincere. This summer her life was full of them, as always. But she was blessed with a faithful helper, a mysterious creature who cared for her and always revealed to her what she couldn’t see. So I followed her to her summer retreat, a mysterious, minimal, monochrome dimension in the greek islands, where she went to be invisible. And she was.
My next assignment came with the mail. Handwritten, with a beautiful calligraphy in an old piece of paper was the following quote from Florence Scovel Shinn’s book “The Game of Life and how to Play it”: The white light of Divine Love flows through me and around me, inspiring and protecting me. The light of Divine Love now dissolves and dissipates every negative condition in my mind, body and affairs. Every cell of my body is filled with the light of Divine Love”. I instantly knew where to go and what to do. i didn’t even have to pack a suitcase…
My new assignment was to photographically investigate the lead actor of a movie that was been filmed on a greek ferry boat. I had 6 hours to find him and capture him -with my lens, of course… He was elusive, but when an experienced photographic investigator is presented with a similar situation, she just shoots silhouette. There were no instructions for the contrary, so everyone was happy.
A 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!
The cats of a photographic investigator (or should I say, “her faithful helpers”?) always like to participate in her indoor explorations in the year of the coronavirus. And contribute, in their own way, to the adoration of a new deity - the toilet paper!
I was obsessed with that new TV series, A Discovery of Witches and suddenly, wherever I looked in Venice, I saw vampires, witches and demons… I also realised that there were bewitched places that could be seen only with the corner of the eye. Was it “Somebody else’s problem” (as Douglas Adams would say) or was it mine?
October is the Celtic month of Ivy and it brings the promise of the inner self and the spiral of life. I read that Ivy’s growth reflects the spiraling patterns of DNA, the gifts our ancestors gave us. For a photographic investigator family is very often a cause for frustration, but this time I decided to see things from the celtic perspective and contemplate on my positive inherited attributes, family traits that have served me well. Made me feel like entering a new, wondrous world…
The theme of the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale is "Freespace". Free space is vital -if a photographic investigator (and any other investigator for that matter, but you must be an investigator) wants to achieve a free mind. Greenland's pavilion was one of my favourites. Not only for it's ample space and minimal concept, but for it's purity. There is a kind of mystical serenity that emerges through your core and enwraps you completely when you are walking in pure snow. The purity of snow triggers it. And this beautiful Greenland free space world, gave you the impression of walking on snow... And as a tropical island lover that I am, I can appreciate a good snow walk, believe me.
One of those typical photographic investigations in Venice, where you intend to investigate one thing and you end up investigating another, a most unexpected one I might add...
"You saw me crying in the chapel, the tears I shed were tears of joy..." sung Elvis and one could easily cry of joy in the Vatican Chapels because they were so beautiful. Of course my subject weren't the chapels themselves but the one who found refuge in them. I had a photographic investigation to do but I also had a soft spot for beautiful people blending with beautiful architecture. My subject was pursued not by me, but from a group of mysterious, very handsome men with impeccable white shirts who invaded one day the vaporetto to San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice. There was something mesmerising in their elegance and style but also something vaguely dark. All I had to do to find my subject was to follow them and I knew right there and then that this would be yet another one of my investigations that it's course had already changed in my mind...
It was a bad 1984 french film with Valérie Kaprisky. But then, everything that reminds us of our youth is seen through a "summer of innocence" filter, as I call it, that feels like the seventies summer films yellow hue looks like... The past is reinvented every time we recall it, and this was one of these times. It was summer in Venice and I was investigating this delicate and sweet young artist, an ethereal presence that decided to take off her shoes and move playfully... And then I saw them. The medusas. It was the first time they were seen in Venice and everyone thought it was a good omen. The incident had a french Riviera feel to it, just like this old movie. I thought it was a good omen as well.
They were coming from another dimension. It's not only I who crosses the curtain in between worlds, it's them to. A photographic investigator can cross the curtain so many times, my energy, as I have mentioned before, was diminishing. For this reason, sometimes it's better to wait for them to come to me. First I saw only one -and then the rest of them followed. It was very much like The "Close Encounters" scene, in the end on the movie. This was not a movie though. And I would not recommend it...
I don't know if it was an entrance or an exit. Maybe neither. There was light, so inevitably there were shadows. I remembered an arabic song called "Fly shadow, fly". Could I be investigating -without knowing it- the ability of a shadow to fly? Well, if it could, it should do it followed by this melody.
What can really be the end of a photographic investigator is not travelling in space, but travelling in time. And I've done that a lot... For some unexplained and probably mystical (or totally meaningless) reason, every time I had to travel in time I was going back to Venice. So, my energy resources were every time smaller, although my ticket was getting cheaper and cheaper. It felt like a countdown. "Al fin, que para morir nacimos" as they say in Mexico... "In the end, we are born to die". Who knows? Maybe the end of my photographic investigations would come in the middle, inside the time vortex, outside of time. I wonder if all my work would disappear with me too. It should, I think.
Miles Davies gave it another life, but this is a Snow White song and as such it should be sung with snow white faith and snow white impatience. Two things that a photographic investigator always finds in abundance in her young subjects...
One of the most essential reasons mystery people -the people I investigate- prefer Venice for their activity is that Venetians never use gondolas. They are reserved for the dreadful tourists. So the people in question use them widely. Who wants to look at a tourist in Venice? Hiding in plain site has always been their game.
A photographic investigator knows that her subjects, hypnotised by the shadows they create, they don't see the All Watching Eye in the projection wall. Doe's she try to alert them?
Mirrors are not always welcome but they are always there, in front of us. Photographically investigating what mirrors can do... Is it the same thing as meditating on the human experience?
Chasing subjects is an every day reality for a photographic investigator. And sometimes the temptation to just let them walk away without being investigated is too strong. Most of the times this photographic investigator resists, though...
