the more perfect shot

my never gonna get it photo

there are some shots that stay in my mind, forever, even though i didn't really shoot. mostly it's because i'm shy. i like to shoot at people - ops, sounds scary this way... i mean, with a camera. my favourite subject are people. sometimes, when i find the perfetc shot, i take too much time so my newly found model realises i'm there and starts getting pissed, or simply leaves because it's his/her own freaking business. this way, most of my never gonna get it photos are born. my perfect london shot. my canada day picture. and many others... simply gone, and forever in my mind.
some other never gonna get it pictures have a more "logistical" nature: they just can't be. like i'm on a bus, and can't possibly ask the driver to stop in the middle of the freaking highway. this means i can't even go back there later and shoot. not really the perfect shot if i get crashed along with my camera... like these days, i've been going back and forth on the highway to naples, and more than once i passed by my perfect shot. if i were good at drawing, i would sketch it, but no way. i'll give it a shot though and try to describe it...
two viaducts from the top corners decline to the bottom, nearly meet in the centre, and peacefully procede on their own. usually these viaducts here around are huge monsters of concrete, uncareful leftovers brought to life by holy mother of destruction - and speculation. but these two are graceful, like if they're some kind of frame, and remind me of a (more) perfect shot from wim wender's paris, texas. in the middle of the shot, behind them, piles and piles of containers, and on the background, centre top, a crane from the harbour not so far away.
ok, i've got a thing for container terminals, everybody knows it. fair enoguh. but still, that was so close to the perfect shot. sooo close. so close i'm never gonna get it.

whatever...

always had it under my eyes...

... and yet had to come in the middle of the freaking continent to be fascinated by harbours. guess what thrills me is the routes of goods around the world, and being in the outskirts, even though stuff passes by all the time, still you don't feel part of the big planet dance...

sunset freak

i think today i saw the greatest sunset ever since i'm here in heidelberg. it was amazing. the sky was still filled with rain-carrying clouds which beautifully filtered the light, thus revealing a totally different colour palette. i am so not used to this light, and i have to admit it's one of the things i love the most here. unfortunately it rains a lot, but at least this means such shows happen pretty often. but never as it was today. shiny shades of yellow and green that i hardly ever saw. the trees on the hill were amazing, the reddish reflection from the buildings, the grayer shade of blue in the sky... i had to stop on the bridge and let me fill by this light. it's true, there is not much light here around, but sometimes it's so rich that it's worth the rareness. even looking at the ground was different, didn't even need to look at the landscape. and i was not the only one stopping, obviously. everybody was gazing, astonished. a couple of policemen even had a sudden u-turn in front of me and parked the car on the tram track (on the freaking tram tracks, for heaven's sake!) just to enjoy the sunset and shoot a couple of pictures. which kind of broke the magic of colours, but just for a moment. somebody would even say it's sweet - me, i was shocked. but just for a second. no time to think about bites of ungermanized germany when the light fair is on...

bye bye, aha

it's over. no more hopes.
one of our favourite places here in heidelberg is slowly going towards its sad fate. i think i already mentioned it some time ago. it's called Altes Hallenbad. AHa.
it was a public indoor pool, built in the '20s and closed at the beginning of the '80s. abandoned ever since, until recently some group of artists decided that the place had to be rescued and used and lived and given back to the citizens. so they started a series of dance and theatre shows, to make us people notice the place, to make us realise how beautiful this place is and how it could possibly become a wonderful cultural centre...
and we all believed this was really going to happen, until a month ago it started being clear that the destiny of the place was different, and last week more than clear it became official:

eine markthalle. a shopping mall. as if the thing that's missing in heidelberg are the shops...
sad, disappointed, disbelieved. what else? ten days ago i went to see their last show, which was pretty bitter. and there was everywhere this atmosphere of closing time that kind of hurts a little. tears almost pricking out of the eyes (i know, i'm too emotional) and the weird, uncomfortable feeling that it was the last time we could walk in that space as it is, as it was, as we got to know it...


it's been nice to believe in this place, to dream about it, to even be able to play a little with it (remember my post about the photo exhibition we managed to organise there??)

we are such stuff as dreams are made on,
and our little life is rounded with a sleep

time to wake up now

should never forget

this is the church of san felipe neri in barcelona. it is located in a lovely small square which is right in the centre, but not at all crowded (then i should probably keep my mouth shut about the place...)
the wall of the church still carries signs of the civil war. bullets from machine-guns.
i've been there three times and every time looking at that wall gives me the creeps.
and it might not be the real reason, at least not the only one. but i like to think that those signs are kept there to remember what happened.
to avoid the risk of forgetting.