Kin
I have long believed that our closest of kin are subjects for our observations just as the outside world is. Whether it is a portrait, a slice of life, or an unguarded moment, or all of them at once, it is essential to being a photographer to pay attention to life close to the bone.
Roadside Opera
Here’s a little story. We had gone to a nearby town for dinner and on the way back, as we passed through a burgo, a small collection of about 5 houses, we saw that 3 people were sitting on the bench right there on the edge of the road that passed through the place. Gianni, ever the connection between all things Tuscan, called out to them as we passed by and they waved to us to stop.
As soon as we did, the Italian Opera began, as always, with gestures, and a half hour of stories and laughter. One of the men had broken his arm and was holding a hand carved stick which helped him do whatever he needed to do with his one good arm. By the end of the exchange Gianni walked away with his stick. How he managed to get the guy to give it to him I cannot say, but it offered me a wonderful few minutes of watching the whole drama play out.
Even the nights in Tuscany are rich with possibility.
Spirits
We have all done this, I know. And I don’t often like to try to find figures in clouds, or patterns and faces in shadows, or other potential sources. So when Maggie and I went to Bagno Vignoni – a Roman bath town nearby – for a lunch and a lie down under the Linden trees; because this was the time of year that Linden trees let out a perfume that is like syrup in the air, and it had become a 20 year, mid-June, ritual of ours to make this pilgrimage. So I was surprised, while looking up into the trees, to be reminded of the paintings of Giuseppe Arcimboldo.
I’m sure you have seen these famous paintings of fruits, vegetables, animals, woodland plants and flowers, etc. But there we were, under the animated spirits of the trees, and with a contented, post lunch dreaminess, we watched the spirits emerge.
Simple Things
Summertime means simple meals. We were lucky that summer to be eating out of the farmer’s garden nearly every day. A broth of vegetables and lentils, some steamed zucchini, fresh tomatoes, edible flowers to embellish the tops of anything we wished, some locally baked crackers. This kind of eating makes me want to photograph every meal, and sometimes I do. More of a record than art, but simplicity is what it demands.
Beached
The 6 month lease on the car we were using was up, and we had to go to the return place near Fiumicino, Rome’s airport. On the way back, in a newly leased Peugeot, we had the need to actually see the sea. But what a gritty stretch of used up and run down, Roman getaway string of beaches! After 15 minutes of trying to find some way on to the beaches we spent 5 minutes on the sand when Maggie said to me, “are you having fun here?” And up we got, but on the way off the beach I saw this dreamer drawing figures in the air, with a matching umbrella to boot.
Later, on a pull off near a gas station, I saw the burnt out wreckage of a tractor trailer and immediately pulled in to see what I might scavenge for my still lives. But on getting closer, and smelling that particular odor of burned metal, rubber, plastic, and assorted other materials, I was overcome by my memories of those smells, and this kind of physical ‘look,’ which I still carry with me from my 9 months inside Ground Zero.
I don’t know what the fascination is. Perhaps it’s seeing a whole thing reduced to its melted components while still retaining something of its original shape. To see this transformation and take the time to walk around it and consider it from every point of view, brings up a lot of thoughts and ideas, and sometimes a fresh image can appear.
While walking around this truck I was reminded of the time when a whale was washed up on the shore in Provincetown, not far from my house, and how it drew the attention of everyone who passed by on the beach. It was a solemn parade, with people needing to go over to it and stroke and commune with the now dead, but still mighty form.
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.
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.
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.
I Take It In
After Rome we came home. What a relief to stand in the open countryside and simply look. That to me is one of the joys of being out of a city where the activity is all over the city’s surfaces, and the layered densities of the movement and constant life on the street build a fevered concentration in me. I love it when I am there, whatever city I am in, because I am truly a city creature, but, oh, the surprise of the spacious and quiet Tuscan countryside, brings out another side of who I am. And that is my meditative nature.
I stand still and let my heartbeat find the rhythm of what I see and smell and hear, and often, then, I see something small and maybe even familiar, but with a freshness that opens me to accepting just the pleasure of seeing it, and slowly, it seems so slow after the city , I take it in.
Flying
I was in the air yesterday into today and couldn’t make the blog post on time. I had hoped for wifi on board, but no.
Rome, last shot of the day before editing.
The next day, the 30th we drove back to Tuscany and stopped in a crazy junktique shop Gianni knows. He found a playmate.
ONCE MORE AROUND THE SUN 