photography, art & other bodily functions
I’m back in the US. As I get some sleep and reacquaint myself with the marvelousness that is “California in late autumn when I don’t live in a cubicle”, here’s a nice quote:
The Real voyage of discovery is not in discovering new lands but in seeing with new eyes.
~ Marcel Proust
So last night I was working on a large batch of photos and took a break around 9:30pm to get a pizza “porta via“, ie to go/take away, from my now favorite near by pizzeria, Niccola’s. They have a woodburning pizza oven and make an amazing crust.
Anyhow.
So I go over, order my pizza, take out my book (The Nasty Bits by T. Bourdain) and start reading. People come in and out and I think that folks seems much friendlier than usual, they’re smiling more. So I smile back and continue reading.
After awhile, I decide to check out the glass case that contains the cold cuts, salads and desserts.
My reflection catches my eye. To clarify, I should say the horror that is my hair catches my eye. It’s done up in a little clippy I sometimes use to keep it out of my face. Obviously, I had done it up at some point while otherwise preoccupied with work but I never noticed the big lumpy, samurai style up-do I had given myself.
Lovely.
I love these so much I keep returning to the Museo Palazzo Poggi trying to get a better, clearer photo of these beautiful cataloging labels that go back as far as the 1700s. Note how they progressively evolve from stylistically ornate to elegantly simple as you move toward the bottom of the frame.
You don’t want to use a flash so as to avoid damaging the old pigments but the lighting has been so dim in these back rooms I haven’t had much luck getting a clear picture.
So damn it, I think I’m just going to have to bring the tripod in and get up close and personal once and for all.
What’s really cool about these is that you can date the displays and (if you had access to the artifacts in storage) when they were cataloged or “brought into the collection” by their labels.
Not that returning to P. Poggi is much of a hardship for me. Located on via Zamboni, just a 10 min, stroll from my apartment, it’s my favorite museum in Bologna.
I won’t go into detail, but let’s just say when I walked into the place for the first time, with its musty antique manuscript / old wood / cold stone / ancient dust / museum-y smell, dim rooms, squeaky floors and old-fashioned displays of odd-ball display of natural history objects in large glass cabinets, I felt a great wave of nostalgia wash over me and I wandered around in a drunken daze, filling my lungs with those funky smells and felt like the prodigal daughter come home.
That would be in reference to the pumpkins, of course.
Prior to my session with Mr. Rossetti, I had some time to work with Maddalena Ricciardi, a young and incredibly promising student of magic.
Maddalena has constructed a moving, exquisite gem of a performance around her illusions and seeing her work up close and in the bright sunlight of the studio apartment she shares with Lorenzo didn’t make the show any less magical.
Instead, it gave me an opportunity to see her delicate choreography in detail, from her gracefully articulated fingers to the precise placement of her arms, head and feet. I marveled at the work involved to create the elaborate stage, puppetry, masks and costumes. And finally I was moved by the storytelling elements that pulled the tiny scene together.
After I saw her performance, I started taking my photos of her workspace while she continued her practice sessions. Since I couldn’t resist, I began to intermittently take shots of her too.
As I’ve continued on this project I’ve noticed that while I’ve always loved photographing “things”, I’m starting to truly enjoy uncovering what can be found in people and learning to do so without being invasive or intruding.
A phenomenal Italian Artist.
I was lucky enough to shoot his studio for my Artists’ Workspace project today and I can’t wait to share some of those pics with you soon.
A door, a bike and a little graffiti all in one shot - oh happy day!
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