Category Archives: Italy

MAY 28, 2015

Still Doing It

In the middle of the shoot a whole class of kids walked right through the shot. Not a problem though as it’s always been my way to accept whatever happens rather than trying to control everything. It didn’t turn out to add anything to the work though, just a pause. The day went well in spite of rain, then sun, and then grey, the works; and in fact it added variety to the feeling of the season the client was hoping for.

I worked through more than 20 setups, which is a lot for a one day shoot, but I managed, even though I hadn’t done a commercial job in more than 20 years, and I surprised myself by holding up and running around after all these young actors for 10 hours. I thought to myself at one point, ‘why are they complaining about working after being in one or two setups, I was in all 20!’ In fact, for me the best part was seeing that I could still do it.

Below is a cast and crew shot at the end of the day.

MAY 25, 2015

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A Meadow

We were driving to Rome for a shoot I was to do at Cinecittá, when along the way we passed this meadow. It was perfect timing, as nature was calling, so what better place to stop and take in while letting out.

The abundance of wild flowers, the heady perfume of the meadow on a warm day, the gentle roll of the land, (they call it dolce, sweet) even the march of trees across the space, produced a peculiar sensation of awe and tenderness in all three of us as we stood on the verge of the meadow and looked in.

How often I have been stopped by something purely visual and yet encouraged to ‘take it in’ by the olfactory message that was being given off by where I was. I have learned to trust this instinct, this dream, or trance state, produced by the union of the whole sensory palette of seeing, hearing, smelling. Sight is not alone in our experience of place.

MAY 22, 2015

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Moon Song

This is the old barn we live in Tuscany. I saw it every day during that first year and no matter what angle, or what time of day it was, the place kept on surprising me. It’s so interesting how many aspects any place can have. All you have to do is keep looking and the seeing of it quickens the blood.

This Quercia, or what the Italians call an Oak, seems fairly nondescript by day, but that evening it sang to me under the moon.

MAY 18, 2015

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Anniversary Day

One day a year Maggie and I travel Once More Around The Sun and find ourselves on the road where we were married 14 years ago. It is a road enclosed by tall Cypress trees, male and female trees mixed together for the last hundred years, or more and whose shapes tell you the difference. The female trees are rounder, thicker, taller, and have small, round, fruited pine cones the size of chestnuts, all over them. The males are slender, not s tall and seem to bend in the wind easier. They certainly are the inferior looking part of the species.

We always go for a walk there at the time of day that we were married, around 6 o’clock. Some days it’s sunny, as it was on our day, and others, as in this image, cooler, clouded over, grayer. We have had it every way and it doesn’t matter what kind of day it is, it’s still our day, and we always make the most of what we are given. Which, as you may have heard me say before, is what is at the heart of the photographic experience; ‘make the most of what you have.’

MAY 15, 2015

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All of a Piece

Oh, the mornings! Sometimes they were as sweet and ancient as the dawn of time. Looking out at the pooled mist lying in the valley I felt the sea that must have filled this basin in the valley eons before the present.

What moments like this do to me is bring me to a stillness that daily life too often shatters. In that stillness the wonder of it all fills me up like the mist in the valley, and makes me linger and sail out of myself to the trance state we call ‘witness.’ And sometimes I don’t remember the actual making of the photograph because the whole experience is all of a piece.

This quality of being present is what I love about the act of making a photograph. Ideas, even ideas about things beyond what is in front of me, slip though the veil between me and what’s out there, and bring the experience inside so that outside and inside blend together like the rangefinder image in the Leica, until there is an alignment, a sense of the whole.

When I recognize and understand that moment of alignment the photograph feels authentic.

Later on that day (15th) I flew to Washington DC to meet with a group of collectors and to have dinner with my daughter, Ariel. We met at a restaurant in a complex in DC that was and looked so different from the Tuscan countryside I left 12 hours before, but which had in common some of the same color palette, but in the most exaggerated way.

MAY 5, 2015

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Contadini

In Tuscany we live on a working farm, and now (2015) we have been here for a whole year, but back when this ‘every day for a year’ series was begun we were there for only 6 months. We became part of the small community formed by Silvia and Vincenzo, a mid 40’s couple who work the land in the old spirit of the contadini’s of the era of padrones, when the system was not too far removed from the serfdom of the middle ages. There are a few other people right nearby who form this little enclave of about a dozen of us, of which we are the stranieri, outsiders.

Silvia was making pizza in their wood fired outdoor oven, a relic of the 18th century when their house was built.To see them work the oven and how easily they move as a team, including their 10 year old son Giuseppe, who ladled the sauces on each pizza, was a gift, as was the pleasure of devouring the pizzas afterward. All the sauces and meats and cheese came from their farm, and I cannot tell you how sweet and true the flavors were.

This image is merely a description of one step of the process. The cows below sometimes make their way into the pizza too.

MAY 1, 2015

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May 1st.

It was a travel day. We left Bonnieux early in the morning after 4 months living there, on the first leg of our year long experiment living in Europe. So we said goodbye to the baker where our daily intake of baguette had become a morning ritual. Boy-o-boy, were they good! It was to be an 800 Km drive from Bonnieux to Buonconvento, so we broke it up into an overnight stop in Camoglie, a seaside town in Italy.

Ah, dear old colorful, worn out, beautiful, generous Italia! Color! Like Italian opera. It is everywhere, and joyous to be in. Even though this blog is about one photograph a day, this kind of travel day is so refreshing in terms of stimulus, that I thought I’d simply lay down some of the eye candy that Camoglie offered on our arrival. Look at this! May 1, and they are already in the water!

As we walked down the seafront I saw this crazy structure on the beach and immediately Fellini’s imagery came to mind. What was this wooden scaffolding all about? And how easily it fit in and seemed normal.

This wall, part of the crumbling beauty of Italian cities struck me as something I might ant to use as a background for a still life. I found myself collecting a few ‘wall’ images that day for possible printing as a field to look at some objects on. Just instinct talking, and I always follow instinct and try not to second guess it.

And then came the giant Frying Pan. Another Felliniesque motif leading to the surreal landscape of Italian life.

Sitting at dinner in the lovely hotel dining room on the sea, the long day coming to a close, a really good Italian seafood dinner in our bellies, the sun slipping into the sea, gave us a kind of perfect end to a long day on the road. More adventures on the road to Buonconvento to come.

ONCE MORE AROUND THE SUN

A photograph every day for a year

Category Archives: Italy

MAY 28, 2015

MAY 25, 2015

MAY 22, 2015

MAY 18, 2015

MAY 15, 2015

MAY 5, 2015

MAY 1, 2015