Sunday, March 28, 2010

palm sunday in florence

they use olive branches rather than palm fronds.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

a sexier darkroom than vickychristinabarcelona's.






black & white photography with simone bacci: lessons learned

the only fault of a photo is that you miss the moment you are capturing when the shutter closes.
even though the sound of it is like all things falling through chaos and landing perfectly in order.
photos in florence are interesting because they have to be the thing that changes, since everything else here always stays the same. it assists in the irony of discovering a place you do not know.
i am envious at light for the clarity with which it speaks to paper. i would like to be able to communicate what is there with as much accuracy as the sun can through an image.
taking photos is taking decisions.
film slows you down. its not a bad thing. and it only asks one thing of you, to be exposed to the right amount of light.
it is not something that makes you think, but react. react using other parts of your being without your rational mind. your photos are a way people can know you.
you will discover something that you own but maybe do not know. maybe you are scared of how wide you are. just because you have to find it with a certain frame of mind does not mean its unnatural.
train yourself when you feel, to grasp the feeling. you can't know how to print the image if you don't know how you felt when you captured it. we are more sensitive than the film we expose.
shooting landscape is hard because there is land, a line, then sky. begin with land so you can understand only that. then move on to sky.
looking at a person and asking them for a photo puts a soul into their eyes.
pretend the only way you can talk is through your picture.
"having dark room for me, like having right arm. without it, i die" -simone.
shoot all the time. rolls and rolls.
its like reading poetry over and over until you finally begin to pronounce the words right.

my midterm grade: "make more room for photo shooting. concentrate on finding. practice a lot. be prolific."

Sunday, March 21, 2010



each place i go i fall in love with something.
then i get home and fall in love again.
it never takes a break.
i thought loving should have to last forever,
but it doesn't!
it might be best when it exists in the moment it stood for
and nothing else. it might be best if it exists where it lived.

in florence, it's the light.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

the most beautiful word in gaelic:

slainte! (cheers!)

ireland's gift to the world is the pub.
where a beer should be like a meal, a pint of guinness should be had in 3 gulps and bulmers enjoyed on ice. we ate roasted chicken and potatoes straight from the county clare farms of shane and mervin, abby's friends from university college corcaigh. we met a college soccer team from letterfrack celebrating their championship win and drank murphy's stout straight out of their trophy cup, singing "whiskey in the jar" and dancing to spoons, fiddles and beer in taffee's pub, galway. (and we decided that falling off the cliffs of moher wouldn't really be all that bad).

good people, good music, and good beer. perfectly simply. especially the people. i am going to name my first child flannery, because it's a beautiful name.


if you play the part of the place you go
eventually it will not be an act anymore.
i found a lambswool tam in galway to wear
and there were kisses on the cheek more times than i can count.
ireland is candidly simplistic, raggedly beautiful
and celebratory of everything.

i crave a heritage like this. how ireland assigns you to find it. i crave a land to pay homage to. i want the ground beneath my feet to speak stronger words than i can speak for myself. i want space only filled with grass and limestone pourous enough to absorb more than my brain can absorb.

the fire that stirs about her, when she stirs. -w.b. yeats (ireland, 1920's)