We are all aware that the year really starts in september, but it is also true that a little number adds itself to the calendar and in a few days the years zeros (?!?) will be left behind to enter the years ten.

Time goes by and these “suspensions” (which deep down that’s the true etymology of the word “holiday”) makes us think at a time that has passed, at the present and at future plans, in spite of this probably being pointless, maybe it being true, as I have written before in posts below, that “life is what happens while we think of what to do of our life”.

It won’t be of any help, but I believe it is right to analyze things, get inside, turn inside out everything that surrounds us, to smell life, to denude in front of everything and, in the nude, loose what we are about to become, maybe, something else.

Therefore here, in this moment of changes, my personal past, present and future:

PAST: a book, I would to speak about the past from a book that speaks about the future. An extraordinary book, a true gem, dense like uranium: “a brief history about the future” by jacques attali. A part from the fact that the first chapter talks about the history of the world, and that in a few pages it talks about everything; a part from the fact that the oxymoron already unites the “history” of the past with the “future”; a part… that you have to read it!

PRESENT: after reading travaglio’s interview with capossela (thanks matteo) one can’t help but cite vinicio: “today is always a gift, in fact it’s called a present”

FUTURE: if the future should be hope, I can’t think of anything better but to talk about and make you listen to a colossal jazz pianist: michel petrucciani.

Let’s get to the point: petrucciani, who passed away ten years ago, looked like this:

Michel petrucciani was afflicted by a very serious genetic disease, which made him almost completely deformed. As you can see by this photograph above (by danilo jans) he couldn’t even reach the piano’s pedals, and he could barely reach (only by astonishing moves) the lower or higher notes. I saw him twice live, he walked with great fatigue with crutches or, in the last few years, he was carried. He couldn’t even climb on the piano’s bench. He was as tall as a six years old kid. Shall we say it? Let’s say it: he was a monster.

here is a video.

But… but thanks to his magic art, thanks to his heart, thanks to his passion… his life was always dedicated to the future.

Listen to these two tracks: black magic and miles davis licks. Listen to the power, the rhythm, the colour (in his last interviews he used to say that by then he was only looking for the colour of the notes…), the swing… he’s fast… slow, light… really heavy… he is the great, colossal, unique, extraordinary michel petrucciani.

And with this I wish you all the best for the new year, 2010!

one of the few presents that are worth giving, for us that have everything: culture.

So here is a great japanese artist photographer who lives in new york, shinichi maruiama, and works with an element that I always like: water.

Here is one of his photos (click to enlarge)

not too long ago i was in portugal for a job.

a story came out of it which i fell in love both shooting and seeing it again. a story about a man and a woman, chasing each other, in a wild and dusty landscape.

before the images were even released I spoke about it here on the blog.

a few months later here I am shooting for the same client. and for a strange and almost incomprehensible fate the story that was in my head has evolved, as if my two characters in the last few months (even if they changed face!) evolved into their own lives.. and, after chasing each other in the desolated landscapes of zabriskie point, finally find peace inside a house, where they could be more calm and, perhaps, closer.

For a thousand and one reasons I have been very lucky along this “path”: just think how this location does not look like a house in london in the middle of December (and photographed with no lights, just with the sunlight!) instead how much does it look more like an indoor of the images of five months ago…

i don’t know if my beloved client will call me also next season, but if case may be i have an idea we will see something else!

anyways, here are all the images, click to enlarge:

I have been in london shooting for a few days.

Now I am at the hotel, in my little suite, all alone. Thanks to this little break from the milanese whirlwind I am able to write in peace and quiet, something  which is getting more and more difficult…

Who the fuck am I, what am I doing, how and why.

Do you understand this? Do you have many certainties? I have none, everything is messed up, everything that is beautiful inevitably turns into a nightmare, and what apparently is disastrous I can’t avoid but to consider it good/nice/right.

Someone once said that life is what happens while we think what to do of our life. Things happen, perhaps beyond our control.

Who am I, what am I doing, how and why?

Someone by the name of F. G. wrote:

…I am everything, I am nothing, I am a dick, I am a drunkard, I am a poet, I am a fool, I am an anarchic, I am a fascist, I am rich, I am without money, I am radical, I am different and equal, negro, jew, communist! I am a faggot, because I sing I know how to embark, I am fake, I am true, I am a genious, I am an idiot, I alone here four in the morning, the anguish and a bit of wine, wanting to curse!…

then nothing, then everything.

Like this image, one of many taken during theses days, here in london, where a figure appears through a mirror, confused… undefined… as everything is confused and undefined… always and forever…

Today panorama first, the issue for men from mondadori, will be on the shelves with panoroma magazine.

Inside I did an editorial which I enjoyed extremely: I took a portrait of seven characters that, even thought they might not have been born in milan, live and work here, appreciating and even loving this city.

Nobody believes me when I say it, but I truly believe it: I really love milan!

I photographed giovanni terzi, ennio capasa, fabio novembre, carlo cracco, davide rampello, linus and some guy named settimio benedusi. Each one shot in their favourite corner of the city,  trying to equalise the weight between person and the location.

You can make the images bigger by clicking on them

So, here I am, a few days after participating to fotografica 2009, the weekend dedicated to photography at spazio forma.

I posted previously, who was there knows it, during the show; I think it is the right time to tell you more, for use and abuse of who wasn’t there…

So, starting from the beginning: I was invited to speak for a couple of hours in the main hall of spazio forma. As soon as the good news was bestowed upon me I immediately started thinking on how to make these two hours interesting. I didn’t think that a simple slide show with my photographs and showing “urbis et orbis” how cool I am wasn’t a good idea. I thought it would be boring…

To be in the game, to risk.. I thought it would be better!

I started with talking about “who I am”. I thought the answer could only be one: “I am all I’ve been”. I then showed a photograph I took in 1979 of my friend andrea (on film, developed and printed by me..) and another taken thirty years later of a model for max magazine. The two images have the same and identical lighting, and by my judgement, exactly the same soul. These are below:

Besides slide shows being really boring, I also thought it was counter producing to show some pictures taken with hot people at the maldives, because it makes you think “everyone is good at taking a picture with a hot person at the maldives”. Which is huge fucking bullshit, because at the maldives  it rains like in milan and there are similar problems, etc etc..

Therefore I thought that it would have been interesting to create an image, to publish immediately. And for this I thought it would have been good to involve the people that where present in the hall. My imagination took me immediately to the famous photograph by tazio secchiaroli, here below:

After that my imagination jumped also to the famous photos by kohei yoshiyuki. In short a story about exhibitionism was growing inside my head.

So I began to think about the well renowned movie by wim wenders paris,texas, with its exquisite soundtrack by ry cooder: that would have been the music following the event.

The model that I needed couldn’t have only been beautiful, but (above all!) good and smart: martina colombari was brilliant! She got in the game like no other, showing that she really is exceptional: thank you martina!!!!

I took the photograph. The one taken in front of the crowd is another one, the one that I then chose and that in reality I prefer is this one (you can enlarge it by clicking on it):

immediately after taking the photo I chose it, I retouched it and I posted it on my blog on the corriere newspaper. During the event the image was on the homepage of the corriere: maybe I was able to show that even without going to the maldives, event without super lighting, but only with an idea you are able, in about half an hour, to create a photograph that has a story and therefore have the dignity to be published. Don’t you like that? perhaps, but it has a precise story to it…

There is also a backstage video made by canon

I would really like to thank everyone (so many!) that came to see me, listen to me and that, above all, participated in creating the image: thank you!