…. at the end africa always reveals itself, with its small/big absurdities ….
in this particular instance, at the very nice hotel were i am staying, they have made a small/big mistake : they have swaped the cold/hot taps.
so hot water (boiling!) from the tap on the right and cold water from the tap on the left.
it wouldn’t be such a big mistake, but the first day i almost burn myself while brushing my teeth.
once i learnt the bizarre situation it wasn’t obviously anything tragic.
all this became comic the first time i went, i beg your pardon, to shit: i relieve myself, pull the water and, what a surprise, i see a cloud of smoke coming up from the toilet: that is also boiling water

life as a fashion photographer can incurr in serious dangers: one is happily on his way to a day of shooting, the sun is shining, everybody is relaxed and serene, and suddenly trgady is around the corner, better say around the turn: the highly poisonous and frightening “10 steps” (so called because if it bites you only have ten steps left to live) crosses the road….
all is fine.
i’m alive!

landed in cape town
sunny and hot.
lost the virgin atlantic flight for technical problems.
caught a south african airlines flight.
lost the luggage.
no change.
totally stunned.
alive.
more or less survived.
“look at this hand mr Benedusi, how many fingers?”
i would say three.
“ouch ouch ouch , mr Benedusi, they are five. Why don’t you take a nice nap?”

well: i arrived last night from usa, i went to my office, worked until late, even if my time zone was telling me it was five am.
then I went home to sleep, even if my time zone was telling me to wake up.
after a while i went to the office and then to linate, even if my time zone was telling me it was the middle of the night and I should have gone to bed.
it is now eight pm, i’m in london in the south african airways lounge, and I’m the only one stunned.
i’m in waiting list because the plane I was suppose to take had “technical problems”.
i’m checking on the net if fashion photography is considered a highly stressing job….

even the job in los angeles has been completed.
i’m in the air france lounge, waiting for my flight to paris and then to Milan
all went almost well.
one thing I want to talk about, and i take it from far:
for a short period of time i was teaching at the european institute of design,
sometimes for longer periods, sometimes only for quick spots to beginners or end of course students.
it was somehow pleasant, but i had to reduce if not cancel, my availability, because of continuous work commintments, preventing me from being present all the time for one reason or the other.
what i want to tell is that for a certain period during the first lesson i was doing something that could seem a big show off, arrogant, haughty and specially out of contest: i was starting the lesson more or less like this: “hi guys, i’m here to teach you how it is possible to become fashion photographers and manage to make it a real profession. before i start to tell you about cameras, magazines, advertising campaign, tests, models, make-up artists, editors, …and so on i would like you to acknowledge one fundamental item that is paramount if you want to became a professional fashion photographer”
at this stage the audience would look at me puzzled, because in the meantime i would open my jacket and take out my wallet
i would open my wallet and take out my american express .
i would showel it in the air saying: “guys, this is the only irreplaceable item , obviously beside your talent and good ideas, to be a fashion photographer.
you can rent cameras, flash lights, films, computers …. you can find anything wherever you are going to shoot, but the real fundamental item is a good well loaded credit card”.
Everybody would lokk at me amazed, some with pity for my excessive arrogance, some with a good dose of disbelieve.
also because my credit card was and is a gold american express.
they saw me, like you see me now while reading these lines, like the hunk photographer that wants to be even hunkier with a hunk scene.
instead it was not a scene, I was and I am absolutely convince of what I was talking about.
to come to the point: if during these days while working in los angeles I didn’t have a valid credit card (all right, a gold American express …) it would have been impossible to complete the job.
i do not say difficult.
i donot say complicated.
i say absolutely impossible,
i would have come back to milan with no photos at all.
not a light matter, isn’t it?
so: do you want to be a fashion photographer?
get a good credit card first.

last day of shooting, here in california.
really beautifull today,
we went for a real dinner in the desert.
all very surreal, always the feeling of being in a movie

yesterday i shot here, a beautiful villa on the hills above los angeles.
what can i say … as usual during trips anything can happen, mess and more mess, problems and more problems.
it is more or less always the same.
thinking about it it is absolutely absurd and complicated to bring clothing all the way here, organize everything, make sure all is working smoothly, knowing very well that a small hickup, the classic grain of sand in the gear, will cause everything to collapse. up to now, after all, is going fine: but everytime the feeling is one’s climbing a mountain.
as usual i imagine those thinking and saying the same sentence: how more difficult and hard the life of people who have to wake up at 5 in the morning to go and drive a bus. it is true, it is far better to come to los angeles and take for a fashion shoot.
but the problems, the anxiousness, the waking up in the middle of the night obsessively going through the list of items that can go wrong, all these one can not even start to imagine.
all right, i leave you now, i’m on my way to santa monica for a brunch
😉

here we are, my shade and i, on the hills of hollywood …

here i am , i am in los angeles.
for you is 5 am, for me is 8 pm, and in fact i am dead tired, but i must resist, otherwise tomorrow morning is going to be a mess.
It is a pity that in the last few days I didn’t have time to come around and write, because i had many absurd and funny topics to write about: i hope i will have the time in the next few days.. one above all, I have to tell you now.
i read, like all of you, this article http://www.adnkronos.com/IGN/Cronaca/?id=1.0.1567101617 talking about the municipality rule in naples that prohibits to smoke in public parks: everybody wrote about it seriously, praising the wise decision. Nobody saw how deeply ridicoulus this is: in naples, where nobody driving a scooter wears the helmet, where garbage invades the streets, where there is the mess and the problems we all know (see gomorra by saviano) and these people place a law that prohibits to smoke in the parks?!?! Can you imagine a neaopolitan sitting on a bench smoking and the cop approaching him to gine him a fine? and nobody says anything?!?! doesn’t it looks as if they are fucking aroud in a huge way? do we send a plumber on board to repair a dripping tap while the titanic is sinking?!?!?

jdwencwcwcswsdwqdk..dwedwedw
you didn’t get a fuck?!?!
me neither.
i’m totally stunned..
i feel like a octopus just caught, to which they turn the head inside out, and they go and hammer it on the rocks.
crazy work period.
day and night. without food or sleep.
all right, I kwon the story of mines and factories …. but I’m braking my ass here, even if i don’t go into factories or mines.
i’ve also done a couple of things on tv, one very different from the other, both very pleasurable and funny.
the first one you will see on rai tre sunday night december the 2nd at 9pm .
now it is 6.30 am on sunday and i’m in malpensa airport, leaving for paris. a thousand uncertainties when one leaves, starting from the taxi that comes at your door to fetch you and take you to the airport. i’m far more worried about this than the flight: what about if someone comes with a wreck of a car and doesn’t know how to drive? that is dangerous, not a plane trip ….. (.. and the plane crushed, and they wrote on the newspaper: “can you believe he wrote these words just before!)
all right, i’m boarding now, or better say i’m aering now, seing that, maybe you already know, i’m going to paris by plane and not by boat ….