As you probably remember from a previous case story, Dorian K. needed no clues from my mysterious employers in order to be photographically investigated. His photographic investigation always happens spontaneously. In this case my subject was his upcoming book -that he was writing for the last few years- on human coexistence. I believe this is his subject. As I was investigating him I told him to hurry up because I would like to read it - at least I was ambitious to try. A photographic investigator warms herself up before any demanding task, because she needs to always be prepared -as humanly possible, that is. So my mysterious employers -with whom I have a telepathic connection- left for me Julio Cortazar’s “Rayuela” (Hopscotch) in a place where I would easily find it during my morning walk. And I did. And knowing that it’s a masterpiece and that it demands a special way of reading it -following the writer’s instructions about the order of the chapters- I delayed starting it. A photographic investigator’s knows better that anyone that there are no coincidences. Maybe delays -in reading, in writing, in publishing, in everything- are not really delays, but a part of the plan. (My mysterious employers plan, to be clear).
My new subject was a talented chef that I met when I was working undercover as a sous-chef for another assignment… The clue given to me by my mysterious employers was “Luke Skywalker” and it was to the point, since from the first moment of our encounter I knew that his presence was not “total”, meaning that he was there but he thought he wanted to be somewhere else. I knew there was a poem that was written for him and I was decided to not publish my investigation until I I was sure which one was it. And now I know. It is called What to Remember When Waking, by David Whyte
When a photographic investigator wanders in the forest without a subject or assignment, poetry “sneaks in” and overwhelms her. In my case it was the poem “Lost”, by David Wagoner, which became my favourite.
Stand still. The trees ahead and the bushes beside you Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here, And you must treat it as a powerful stranger, Must ask permission to know it and be known. The forest breathes. Listen. It answers, I have made this place around you. If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here. No two trees are the same to Raven. No two branches are the same to Wren. If what a tree or bush does is lost on you, You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows Where you are. You must let it find you.
Editing the last photographic investigation of my beloved subject with the code name "Seven" it came to my mind a comment of the Irish poet David Whyte about "La via negativa": which a notion/practise in the catholic contemplative tradition that, at it's heart, consists in the ability and the discipline to say “no” in everything in your life that is not an enormous "yes". What Keats calls "negative capability", in David Whyte's words, "The ability to open an absence inside you, into which the world rushes".
The clue that my mysterious employers gave me about my new subject was: “Moonlighting”. And for a moment I thought that I had to travel -again- through time and space to find myself in LA during the shooting of one of my most beloved tv shows of the 80’s… Could my subject be David Addison, Miss Dipesto, or even Maddie Hayes? Well, my subject’s name was Maddie, she was just as beautiful as Maddie Hayes and I did not had to travel through time to photographically investigate her. Just like Maddie Hayes was reluctant to start the Blue Moon Detective Agency with David Addison, my Maddie was reluctant to use her popular name, given that her christian name was Adamandia, which means diamond like. I could sympathise and even agree with her, but my love for Moonlighting prevailed.
A photographic investigator never discards anything… Not old cameras, old cars, old furniture nor old SD cards. Because she knows that at a certain moment a hidden treasure will be revealed in or through them. That’s exactly what happened. Hidden in a SD card were photos -mostly backstage- of an amazing photo shooting of Nicoletta Lucerna’s famous corsets in Giudecca, with my favourite model, the beautiful Luana Ghezzo. It was the May of 2018 - and it seems like yesterday to me. I guess a photographic investigator always misses Venice.
Once again I found myself in Melissi, an inter-dimensional village where photographic investigators rest after long travels between dimensions and timelines and where I personally audition cat-helpers -an essential part of a photographic investigator’s assignments. The new candidates where playful and highly evasive. A good match, I thought…
The 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.
Another mysterious character I was hired to investigate. I picked up a very bright sunny day to do that… and I managed to make her sunglasses disappear… But she was very resourceful, as you can see. Nobody really knew anything about her… Only that she travelled a lot… Was she dangerous? Maybe? Was I scared? You will never know.
As I was browsing through old carnival photos with people that are no longer in my life and in places that no longer exist, this amazing song by Toquinho was playing in my internal sound system… Escravo da alegria - slave to joy. And as I went to you tube to listen to it externaly as well, in one of the comments I read how Toquinho composed this song: He saw a phrase on a truck bumper that caught his attention and served as inspiration for this great hit. The message said: “If love is fantasy, I find myself lately in the middle of carnival”. The same way that my photographic investigations resolve themselves.
“When you run after thoughts, you are like a dog chasing a stick. Every time the stick is thrown you run after it. Instead, be like a lion, who rather than chasing after the stick, turns to face the thrower. One only throws a stick to a lion once!”
This was the password phrase. I was investigating "The woman without a face", a notorious and mysterious ufologist and ancient civilisations specialist who had recently made a groundbreaking discovery… She was hiding in Plain Sight, a coffee shop that everybody could see but only the password would get you in. It was a 4 shots investigation and I can say one thing with certainty: she had beautiful hands.
Samsara is wisdom unrecognised, said Vajrasattva. In the heart of enlightenment, samsara and sorrow are merely the play of the All Good. And the five poisons of lust, aversion, dulness, arrogance and jealousy reveal themselves as five wisdoms. Wisdom is all pervading like the light of the sun. It is an all-healing flow of compassion than washes away our five negative predispositions. This photographic investigation brought the above truths to mind…
This photographic investigation took place in silence while listening to excerpts from a Ilie Cioara’s book - and affirmed itself through itself as power and beauty. He also wrote: “Life is perpetual freshness, in permanent movement, As such, we need to be the same way; A childlike innocence is requested by Existence, Every time, in every circumstance – a priceless purity.”
My new subject, Tatiana, was working in Sorrento and I was there for it’s healing waters, as I have mentioned in a previous blog post (“The healing waters of Sorrento”). As usual, I had no idea about this new assignment, neither did I know that the woman who served me my sour cherry drink every day, was the one I had to photographically investigate. My clue came one night through intuition and via a dj who was strategically placed in the right time at the right bar by my mysterious employers. Intuition made me send a waiter to ask the name of a song I liked and the clue came in a piece of paper. The dj wrote: “Caritas abundant in Omnia” (“Love Aboundeth in All Things”). It was certainly not the song I’ve heard, but the name of a hymn written by Hildegard of Bingen -a German Benedictine abbess and polymath active as a writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, and as a medical writer and practitioner during the High Middle Ages. I knew right away that I had to look around me for an angelic creature. This is the first part of this photographic investigation…
Magical places and mysterious creatures don’t impress a photographic investigator. If she can survive inter-dimensional travel with all it’s energy depleting implications, she certainly can handle elves, goblins and other strange presences that are lurking inside trees, becoming one with them, giving them a different kind of life. This impromptu photographic investigation happened when I realised that someone was watching me as I was laying on the beach on a warm autumn’s afternoon… But then, it was Halloween and the veil between the worlds was getting thiner than ever…
...I must say I always have loved the "liberation point". The moment when the illusion collapses. Not only because it gives equally good investigative portraits, but because it's most promising: who knows? If one illusion collapses today, maybe another one, more important will collapse tomorrow. Something to meditate on…
I was sent there for the healing waters. My mysterious employers offered me this assignment as a gift because they knew that my energy levels were depleting after so many inter-dimensional travels. I was grateful but I wasn’t seeing any results on myself, to be honest. But there was this man that me and a fellow investigator had noticed sitting always in the same position in a beach bar that was called Sorrento. We had figured that his indian name was “The one who sits” as we were “The ones who came”. One morning I took a long was after sunrise and I found myself in Sorrento. “The one who is sitting” was coming out of the water and a few seconds later in his place I saw a young woman fishing. And then I knew that I was transformed, because what we see is us, really…
It was really a pretext so I could get close to her. As usual, I was hired to investigate her. I didn't know why, only that she was a writer and a musician. I had to read her short stories and listen to her music and make her talk to me. What she didn't know was that it was really her pictures that were doing the talking. But I couldn't tell her that. I am often wondering about my employers motives when they send me to photographically investigate someone… I have managed to realise one thing: they know more about my subjects then what these subjects know about themselves. And of course that on the other hand there is always me... That all I really know about anything, is nothing.
The cats that helped me with my assignment in the greek islands haven’t said their last word. It seems that there were some shots of them that I had forgotten. They were hidden in a secret file of a lost archive of a destroyed mobile phone - a photographic investigator uses all the potential tools that has in her disposal at the time of the investigation. The cats informed me about their existence and the long and adventurous search of them begun… After almost 2 years, we succeeded to recover them. And here they are!
