Leica C Typ112

COLLABORATING WITH THE BLUEBEATERS

Collaborating with The Bluebeaters: it meant marrying my cultural background to that of the musicians and identifying a visual and sonic continuity between “me” and “them”. 

PRESENT: Turin and Milan, today. 

PAST: Coventry and London in the late Seventies. 

A melting pot of… Sounds, experiences and dreams: all recorded in black and white… as it came.  

CLICK after CLICK… Coventry and London… CLICK after CLICK… Milan and Turin… An exciting roundtrip. CLICK after CLICK… The Bluebeaters and… The soul of The Specials… 

“MR. TRAINSPOTTING” – IRVINE WELSH

“By definition, you have to live until you die. Better to make that life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be.” (Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting, 1993)

When I first read Trainspotting I realized I was very fond of alcohol and even more of music. Irvine Welsh impressed me as well as John Belushi did. Mr. Welsh’s prose has made everything more real and less “boyish” by transforming the wandering from one party to another into an apprenticeship… that is… both crazy but meticulous… And it has transformed me into the sonic lover and the cultural agitator I am today.

(Thanks to Nicola and Gabriele – Serendeepity Milano)

STEVEN VAN ZANDT COVER STORY

Plug n’ Play Swiss music magazine, December 2021: Steven Van Zandt cover story. Thanks to KINDA Agency for the exclusive photo session in a typical Milanese court. Very special thanks to Mr. Van Zandt for his willingness and for sharing real rock tales.

I JOKE, AND JOKE…

I JOIKE, AND JOKE 72 dpi

A photographer. A compact Leica. A house in the Marais, Paris. A musician-writer. The mountains of Morocco. A mask, one of the many masks of contemporary times. A vision: a comics character nominated at the 2020 Academy Awards. This is how the visual project “I JOKE, AND JOKE” was born.

FREE DOWNLOAD: I JOKE, AND JOKE

 

WHAT THE PARISIANS LET YOU SEE

Quello che i parigini ti lasciano vedere_01

From the bistros to the streets, what the Parisians let you see is just a part of their everyday life. It’s a mind game – an “allowed theft” of moments and forbidden frames – that starts in the mind of the photographer. Paris as a hallway in a high-school: relate to a few schoolmates and ignore the rest of the world inside. Little Leica C Typ 112 is the perfect “invisible mate” to explore a reality which is apparently flat. High contrast black and white is the patois language allowing you to quickly understand and live the different situations around you. Everything that is happening in front of you can open the curtains of reality. A coffee with a friend; an ecological rally; perfect architectures and reflections; street art sketches; passers-by ad commuters. Even where the dark explodes, a blink of light survives for the photographer. Paris is… what the Parisians let you see, between the shadows and the lights.

Quello che i parigini ti lasciano vedere_04

Quello che i parigini ti lasciano vedere_05

Quello che i parigini ti lasciano vedere_06

Quello che i parigini ti lasciano vedere_07

Quello che i parigini ti lasciano vedere_09

Quello che i parigini ti lasciano vedere_12

Quello che i parigini ti lasciano vedere_15

Quello che i parigini ti lasciano vedere_16

EXTINCTION REBELLION IN PARIS

 

PRS_13 72

A village.
A real village, built at the Châtelet, in the center of Paris.
It is a real village – I wouldn’t call it simply an encampment – fully equipped to facilitate the permanence of the Extinction Rebellion people.

PRS_11 72

PRS_14 72

PRS_16 72

PRS_17 72

PRS_19 72

PRS_23 72

There are tents, small yurtas, improvised but well-tended gardens, spaces dedicated to debates; toilets, meeting points, a medical center and even a cellar; and a gratuiterie where warm clothes are available in case of a cold night.
The slogans are as varied and colorful as the new residents of Châtelet. Some “hardcore” mottoes; and more reasoned ones. The main goal is printed on the banner that crosses the rue de Rivoli at the corner of Boulevard Sébastopol where the crowd is. “CHANGE OF PRIORITY.” Accordingly, the symbol of the movement is a stylized hourglass.

PRS_25 72

The prefecture has banned the rally scheduled for the morning. It doesn’t matter. The rebels soon reorganize, call a meeting right under the banner.
There is no shadow of the gilet jaunes here: just some hasty tags on a bus shelter. Gilets orange are what the people of the order service are wearing, and peaceful protesters are on stage.

PRS_24 72

After adjusting the amplification system, a skinny and whiskered blond young man takes the microphone and starts a rap with ecological rhymes for the crowd that is beginning to gather.
His militant lyrics reach beyond the Fontaine du Châtelet to the Pont au Change, which is blocked at the end of the Quai de l’Horloge by the offshoots of the Extinction Rebellion village.
While two young men are intent on cleaning the stone parapet of the old bridge, smudged by tags, a gilet orange shows an alternative way to the Île de la Cité to an Asian tourist in fluent English. Two dogs play nearby following in the footsteps of passers-by while their masters kneel on the pavement creating new tatzebaos.
Persons who are just curious mingle with activists. Someone asks questions. Someone else takes pictures. Here and there you can see the discreet presence of reporters ready to collect impressions and news on the events of the day.
In rue de Rivoli a lady in a raincoat is bent over the asphalt intent on leaving a mark of her militant participation: “REBEL FOR LIFE.” On a window “ANIMAL REBELLION – INSURRECTION – STOP FARMING/LIVESTOCK AND FISHING.” To partially shade an igloo tent decorated with a red and black ladybug-style motif another banner announces: “HERE WE CULTIVATE.” Less than ten meters away, a field with timid plants sprouting out of the humid dark soil.

PRS_42 72

PRS_43 72

PRS_46 72

PRS_47 72

PRS_48 72

PRS_58 72

The attention returns to the rue de Rivoli where the young rapper calls another person to the center of the scene.
A girl announces the name of Carola Rackete.
The brave German captain of the rescue boat Sea Watch 3 timidly emerges from the crowd with her long dreads. She smiles as she advances with a firm step. The signs of the judicial events of the summer – linked to the rescue of migrants in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea – left memories on her young face. Her eyes reveal the ideals in which she believes and for which she fights.
She greets everybody and announces that she will make her speech in French, apologizing for her pronunciation, holding a smartphone with the text of her speech.
Carola speaks for about ten minutes: she tells about her commitment to the environmental cause – she spent time at the North Pole studying the effects of pollution on ice – and underlines how the phenomenon of migration has always been linked to environment and climate changes. Saving people at sea is simply the logical consequence of her environmental activism.
Everyone listens.
Someone is preparing a question.
I take some pictures.
I take one frame in particular.
At the back of my mind a painting preserved in the Louvre Museum, just a few hundred meters from where we stand.
A fraction of a second before the CLIC and everything is done!
Carola Rackete magically enters in a black-and-white version of Le Radeau de la Méduse (1818-19) by Théodore Géricault – the painting depicting a tragedy at sea which at the time had a great international impact.
Or maybe I just imagined seeing one of Lucas Cranach’s Madonnas…Painting and photography… Past and present.

PRS_41 72

PRS_84 72

PRS_89 72

PRS_91 72

Looking at the black writing on the side gate of the Théâtre de Ville, which is all wrapped up for restoration, it would seem that the future also looks back to the past: “1871 VIVA THE COMMUNE!”
Perfectly complementary to the “OUR DESIRES PROVIDE DISORDER” graffiti which I had come across a few hours earlier near the Pompidou Center.

PRS_88 72

PRS_78 72