Monthly Archives: June 2015

JUNE 10, 2015

Leave a reply

Being There

Simple things; like going to the market, or laundromat, or the dentist, can surprise any of us. That tooth chair for little kids next to the sage green, jeaned bottom of a client, (standing cross-legged in a diamond shape on the floor) seen up against that rosy-lavender wall, underneath  and related to that acid green wall behind the desk attendant, not to mention the gold plate. All of it came together in a quick gasp of the recognition that once again, life offers up unimaginable combinations, and all we have to do is be there.

06-10 L1030196.

JUNE 9, 2015

1 Reply

Homey

I had seen Maggie doing a homey piece of handwork – sewing weights into the bottom of a fly curtain over the front door – and was moved to see such a simple task being done with so much pleasure. She is a real contadini in that way. She loves old methods and the life people led in the past.

06-9 L1030182 copy

When I stepped outside a whole other image presented itself, one a bit more comical, and probably one I might have made on any street, anywhere in the world. That kind of disembodied image that gives off a tremor of surprise that is accompanied by pleasure.

06-9 L1030188

JUNE 8, 2015

Leave a reply

Strangely Beautiful

Machines for specific functions can be strangely beautiful. This creature kicks cut hay into winnowed rows for later rolling up by the farmer. To come across it at rest, out in the open at that time of day was breathtaking. Its color harmonized with the varied greens of the land, and the late light intensified its physical presence, making it feel – for just a moment – like an amusement park ride I wanted to strap myself into and be sent spinning for a wild 5 minutes.

06-8 L1030140

JUNE 7, 2015

Leave a reply

Attention

Gianni had brought me some leaves he saw in a friend’s garden. One of them, this bronzed and beautiful one of trillions on the planet,  is a type of Italian Magnolia leaf,  and it managed to convince me to put it in the mix with these other objects to see what would happen.

I like this dark setting, it seems to have suited where I was heading with these still lives when I began making them. After all the years of ‘light’ being my subject, darkness descended when I began working inside, and I like it! It continues even now a couple of years later with a whole new series. But these strange personaggi seem to have real personalities when I spend time with them. They show a stronger side now and then, but I have to  turn them slowly and watch carefully, just like a moment on the street, the essential quality of their being can be missed in a heartbeat, so close attention must be paid.

06-7 L1002421

JUNE 6, 2015

1 Reply

Softening

Some moments are rich with meaning and yet so simple as to be ordinary. Gianni was walking down the road with his son Giovanni, a 24 year old who, like many young adults, has been in revolt against all the values of his parents. It’s normal. And Giovanni has a tough act to follow with his father, who is rooted to the Tuscan earth like few people I have ever met. Often they are capable of a give and take that is complicated.

But this year something has changed, and as I watched them go down the road, in the glow of the last light of evening, I saw what could on the one hand be just a cliché, but in reality is the softening of differences that maturity brings. It was beautiful to me on all counts.

06-6 L1030055

JUNE 5, 2015

Leave a reply

N.B. The wrong month and day were inserted yesterday

Humility

This is where we live. On a real farm in the hills of Tuscany. Those cows are out our door and down the slope maybe 150 yards away. Most of the time I don’t think of cows as subject matter that I’d be interested in, but when this double rainbow fell into their field they suddenly became more important to me just by being in the space. It’s the humility that gets to me. They’re not exciting the way wild animals might be. They just ruminate around, eating, lying down, wandering to the pond for a drink and a cool place to be, what a life. I could learn something from them.

There are evenings when we walked down the road just to be in their presence. They stand and look, and we do the same, and often something happens that is as simple and ancient as old dutch landscape paintings, with hay ricks and wagons, and farmhouses and sometimes a wonderful weather event in the distance. I don’t know what it is about this ordinariness, but it goes in deep, and I continue to try and find my way to making photographs that tell it right.

For a city guy to to be in this kind of country, without the drama of street life, is a lovely problem  to take on, especially for a ‘photograph a day’ project. Some days things are very quiet in the country, so making work requires a different kind of openness.

06-6 L1029985.

On the walk back to the house  Maggie (then the space behind her was bare gravel, and now, 2 years later, it is lush with flowers and clover and trees – a magical transformation made by Maggie) picked up two rose petals which were dazzling in her hands in the low light.

06-6 L1029998.

JUNE 4, 2015

1 Reply

Siena

I usually have been fairly straight ahead when I photograph. I like standing at my own height, not stooping or bending, basically looking at the world from eye level. It has suited me for 50+ years, but here I was in Il Campo, the vast piazza in Siena,  a place I love to go to. It’s a fan shaped piazza that is made of old bricks and it slopes downhill making it a great place for people to lie down in and take the sun, or just hang out.

So imagine my surprise when I opened my eyes and saw the tower from this position. Instead of rolling over and becoming right side up I decided to experience the dislocation and see what making a photograph like this felt, and looked like.

06-4 L1029957

JUNE 3, 2015

1 Reply

Accepting the Unexpected

Gianni knows how we like strange stuff to work with, me for my still lives, and Maggie for her constructions and other assemblages. On this day he brought a small barrel of wood shavings he saw in a woodworker’s atelier and had an immediate response to. So in they came and the first response was to how great they smelled, like being in a sawmill and taking in the sweet fragrance of pine and chestnut.

We give back and forth with Gianni. Whenever we come across something quirky or mysterious in some way, or very old and once of use in the old methods of working the land here, we bring it back for him. Part of this give and take brings us closer to the culture here and makes us more aware of the past and what remains of it in the present.

By accepting things as odd as this bowl of shavings I open myself to new ways of looking, and now that I have been making still lives I surprise myself by what speaks to me. I feel that seeing and photographing is an ongoing process of opening, again and again, to the unexpected, no matter what form it comes in.

06-3 L1029932 copy

MAY 2, 2015

2 Replies

Off Limits

We have had a special friendship with Gianni for 20 years. It was his character and generosity that led us to think about starting our own workshops in Tuscany 20 years ago. At that time he was the director of a large azienda; Castelnuovo Tancredi, on which there was a castle and 7 renovated farmhouses capable of holding 40-50 people. The castle was lived in by the owner, who at 102 is still living there! And who danced at our wedding when she was 87.

So, Gianni is, for us, and I know for many other people too, a special keeper of the flame of old Tuscany. And it is with him that we frequently go off on jaunts around the countryside searching for old treasures that carry the history of  the region. And this year we have taken a studio all together to make a kind of museum out of these finds, and also to work on our own projects in. But when I made these images 2 years ago, while doing the picture a day project, we were just finding our way to living here more regularly.

Maggie has learned her Italian by speaking with Gianni who is immensely patient with us, and is a great communicator himself, while not speaking a word of English. I find that I can photograph our lives as if I was out on the street anywhere in the world, and that this trio we make provides countless picture opportunities. It brings up that same lesson again and again; do not treat the intimate space of family as if it was off limits for doing serious work.

06-2 L1029884 copy

06-2 L1029906 copy

06-2 L1029912 copy

JUNE 1, 2015

1 Reply

You Will Be Surprised

When I am out walking with Maggie (who, among many other professions during a well lived life, was a dancer) the unpredictable often happens, so carrying a camera is a foregone conclusion. She, spins, and kicks, and runs and laughs, like a 6 year old, and she is more than 10 times that, but her energy and humor are part of the bounty she has brought into my life. Every so often I think; ‘why haven’t I made a book about her?’

While considering a photograph for today’s blog this one popped into view, as did that thought once again. I must have a thousand photographs of Maggie from our 20+ years together, probably more. This is a photographer’s dilemma; the thought that someone close to you is not the stuff of a book. In fact the family and loved ones constitute a great subject for an intimate work, if only we are willing to take the time to look closely at what we have. It also is a portrait of how one ages. Consider Nick Nixon’s series of the four, Brown sisters. When looking at them we see the wear and tear of lives spanning 40 years which, even without words, is an amazing document that grows deeper with each reading and every year.

So, look into your files for those images that you though were too personal, or too familiar, and try looking at them as if you were a stranger who has discovered this trove in a flea market trunk, the way John Maloof discovered Vivian Maier. You will be surprised.

L1029833