Genova!

I am back in Genova and it is so unbelievably good to be here again.

I was drowning in the winter grey of Belgium, missing my great big Genovese walks round the city, missing the exquisite espresso that Simona and Marta make, the focaccia from Panificio Patrone in via Ravecca, and missing the pleasure of finding just the right food, in amongst all that is delicious at Francesca and Norma's shop.

11am, and I have walked around the old city, bought my pale pink flowers, eaten focaccia, had espresso. I have talked with people.  This place feels like the closest to home I have ever been while wandering outside of New Zealand these last 9 years.

The sky is a deep deep blue, the air is mild - unlike the freezing cold in Milano as I arrived yesterday.  People are out on the streets and, as always, they are talking to each other and greeting strangers.  Did I tell you how much I love this city?

I felt so very strong, walking the hills in a way that delights me, as it's my first time on hills since I was here last, back in November.

I'm here to put together a range of accommodation options for the photography workshop in April.  I have my favourite hotel but I need to cover all budgets.  I think it will be easy but I want to be sure of what I am recommending.  And I need just a few more specific photographs for the book.

No photos today though ... my hands were full of focaccia and flowers.  And my soul was singing too loudly to concentrate on pulling my camera out of my bag to use it. 

And yes, I am a wee bit much this morning but oh, it is good to here.

a few days and good friends ...

I have some truly remarkable friends and I've been busy with some of them.

Shannon came visiting from Holland, arriving on Friday night, she stepped straight into a wee adventure, racing off to view the latest Jane Eyre movie with Ruth and I.

I had forgotten how much fun the movies could be ... and it was a most excellent movie.

Shannon and I wandered through Saturday ... starting late, we headed into the city and spent most of the day chatting in the lazy lovely way old friends chat.

She left on Sunday but not before we picked up Peter, the lovely tenor bloke I know, from the Airport bus.  We strolled across the big square outside Central Station, here in Antwerpen, and popped into the Zoo Cafe for a small wine-quaffing session.

Shannon left, and Peter came home to stay with Gert and I.  He's here for a few days before he jets back to his base in Berlin and so our days are full of conversation and photographs.  Jessie and I are updating his professional information photographically and he is being generally entertaining.

In other news, my daughter photographed me today.  I needed a publicity shot too.  It's quite the bizarre thing to be on the other side of the camera but voila ... hello from me here in the flatlands.

everything ...

I'm putting together a book about my times in Genova ... but I'm launching/writing/creating a marketing campaign too.

And I am learning that I can't put together this book until the marketing is done, till the Newsletter is written, until the adverts and everything else is done because it all comes out of my head and they don't play well together.

I fly soon.  Back to Genova.  Perhaps there, and then, marketing tidied up and put out in the world, perhaps then I will simply sit down and put all the pieces of 'book' I have here on my desk.

Art and Fear

"Artists come together with the clear knowledge that when all is said and done, they will return to their studio and practice art alone. Period. That simple truth may be the deepest bond we share. The message across time from the painted bison and the carved ivory seal speaks not of the differences between the makers of that art and ourselves, but of the similarities. Today these similarities lay hidden beneath urban complexity -- audience, critics, economics, trivia -- in a self-conscious world. Only in those moments when we are truly working on our own work do we recover the fundamental connection we share with all makers of art. The rest may be necessary, but it's not art. Your job is to draw a line from your art to your life that is straight and clear."

- David Bayles & Ted Orland (Art and Fear)

found over on The Drawing Board.

The Queen of England gave me camera shake ...

This photograph still makes me giggle ...

I have photographed actors on assignment for Canwest, and prime ministers, more than once, governor generals x two and high-ranking soldiers. 

I have photographed musicians and world famous artists and authors but no-one made me shake until the Queen of England looked directly down my camera lens. 

But no one ...

It could have been so good.  I was so close, with an unrestricted view but, for me, this New Zealander who had grown up immersed in stories of this fabulous English queen, it was like seeing a unicorn and realising it was a true story.

Camera Shake ... best avoided.