Sunday 31 January 2010

My consuming quest ...


My restless youth was governed by the consuming urge to find my place in life, to find the inner connection with myself. I couldn't remain still for long because sooner or later the burning reality within me would surface and propel me forward into a fresh search. My strong middle class conditioning to conform forced me into places and situations that would jar my deeper feelings and lead them to rebellion. "Who am I?' is still digging into the deepest part of me... will I know before my last breath?

Friday 29 January 2010

My first job in London ...


It was 1969 when I became officially a professional photographer. I had finally achieved what I wanted to be for some troubled years. London was buzzing and so was the blood in my veins. I was still living in a bedsit in Kensington Old Brompton Road. A house I loved deeply and where I had so much fun photographing the various characters sharing it with me. The tiny room had my enlarger on a table, a gas ring on the floor for my food and the chemicals to process and print the films stored under my bed. Whenever I had visitors I would burn incense
to cover the smell of chemicals. Money was scarce but life intense...

Tuesday 26 January 2010

January ...


January is always such a difficult month, demanding and confusing. I feel that I should be doing more and faster to embrace the promising new year. Lots of expectations and few results, unfortunately. A ghostly shadow is following me around everywhere I go, a kind of miserable alter ego, who is awaiting for the chance to trip me and ruin my act. I have not been able to get to my computer and write to my blog, in fact, because I feel pretty empty with little to say and even replying to emails is a gigantic task of concentration. Well ...the end of the month is in sight.

Thursday 21 January 2010

Love ....

As the old saying goes, my life begun at 40. It really did. Can one imagine a grown professional man, a photographer with a large business of his own, living at the creative edge of life, a wild youth of pain and joy ... realising, almost suddenly, that his past existence had been to him virtually meaningless and that the only reality left from it was a giant hole in the heart? At 40 the DarkHole begun to heal ....Yoga appeared in the horizon and a fresh chapter manifested. The expansion of my consciousness took me to devour spiritual books,
astrology, psychology and begun asking deep questions. I became aware that I had never been able to Love. I mean that openness inside, that warmth generated by accepting, that willingness to understand. I grew up in post-WW3 Rome where the daily reality were fear, sorrow, martyrdom, frustration, resentment, anger, and life was lived at a survival level. My family had been gradually drained of feelings through the experience of war.
What to expect? Where would I learn about love? ....