A good year to achieve photographic investigation goals and to investigate interesting, mysterious people... But this is also a year that a photographic investigator like me, who is born under the sign of the Rooster, is supposed to wear always something red -with the option of red underwear that someone gave her as a present- to avoid bad luck. What can I say... I don't like to wear red, so it must be the underwear option. Life was unbelievably much easier when I thought that this would be my lucky year. Now I must ask someone to give me my birthday present in advance. Red underwear...
Another time travel assignment for Angie Stergio Photographic Investigations, but this time I brought my subject to my current timeline instead of going in hers... Too much time travel can mess with your energy levels, and mine where at a critical point. She was kind enough to come to my bleak reality and I am grateful to her for it... Plus, she brought with her some of the ambiance of her time and that could never go wrong...
In between investigations, listening to the Xanadu soundtrack and drinking black coffee, dreaming of Christmas magic, miracles, abundance of all good things and seeing guardian angels shining their sparkle all around me... But most of all, being grateful... Someone should seriously think about introducing Thanksgiving instead of Black Friday in our little place of the world. My photographic investigations are certainly more fruitful around subjects that are thankful as opposed to subjects that are fighting in order to buy very cheap things...
She was named after the infamous Mali tribe and she frequented a bar named Sirius... And I don't believe in coincidences... It goes without saying that she was a woman of mystery and many hidden talents. My assignment was to follow, befriend and photographically investigate her in order to discover clues about a hidden treasure. Was it hers, was it a legacy, was it mystical, ancient or stolen? I was dying to find out because since my first investigative steps, as a child, I was always looking for treasures. And although I would be very well satisfied with gold or diamonds, I suspected from the start that it was about something else, much more precious, much more subtle. I got to work fast, because I was promised a 25% cut on that treasure. The investigation is still ongoing.
Photographically investigating people who aren't real -but they think they are- is a challenge... Who knows... maybe I am being investigated myself right now. How do I know for sure that I am real? When the question really arises, answering it becomes a true challenge... You should try it yourself!
Investigating a woman in extremely noir circumstances... Brought to mind "Dark Passage", starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacaull... for obvious reasons to a film noir lover...
There may be trouble ahead But while there's music and moonlight and love and romance Let's face the music and dance
Before the fiddlers have fled Before they ask us to pay the bill and while we still have the chance Let's face the music and dance
Soon we'll be without the moon, humming a different tune and then There may be teardrops to shed So while there's moonlight and music and love and romance Let's face the music and dance
A very short photographic investigation about a mysterious guard in the Gran Scuola di Santa Maria della Misericordia in Venice that just disappeared into thin air. A routine job for me... So many vanishing subjects in my career...
She was a Woman Without a Face and my only clue was: "Follow the rings" -whatever that meant. Of course, as soon as I located her, I knew... She could change her face no more than 3 times in 24 hours. And every time she had to use one of the 3 rings she wore. She could acquire one more ring -after a series of trials and rites i don't want to know nothing about- and that would place her at the top of the hierarchy of her kind, which was a very big deal. I guess that's why I was chosen to photographically investigate her. It was the eve of her great "test". I wholeheartedly hoped that she survived it...
Nicoletta was a magical being. She created enchanted garments in a little shop in Campo S. Giovanni e Paolo in Venice. Her creations were famous for the special attributes they gave to the one who wore them, so I was hired to investigate 4 of her most powerful corsets. First, the Black Corset. Probably the most impressive one. It's secret, and greatest power, was that it could hide the halo that surrounds exceptional, spiritual beings from clairvoyant agents that worked for... (let's put it this way)... darker forces. It was a protection, a magical armour for ethereal presences. And it worked perfectly. Nicoletta used Luana, a beautiful fairy, to model her corsets and make sure that they served their purpose. And I was the witness.
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.
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...
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…
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.
