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Archive | February, 2015

The end of February…

By on February 24, 2015 in 120 film, 35 mm photography, beauty, biking, black and white portraiture, craft, darkroom work, Greece, John D.C. Masters, John Masters, mountain biking in Greece, Paroikia, Paros, Paros Portraits, quiet islands, silver darkroom, skill and craft, spiritual journey, spring in the Aegean, working

I am happy that February is almost done.  It is the shortest month and here on Paros it has been very cold, but also quite beautiful with lots of rain, green fields promising spring.  March harkens, change is just around the corner.

I guess this is a bullet-point post…

–I turned 50 a couple of weeks ago.  Some friends took me out to dinner at one of our favorite tavernas and I was truly touched by their generosity and warmth.  Thank you, thank you…50 years on the planet, half a century. Hmmm…there were moments that I didn’t think I was going to make it, probably a couple where I tried not to.  Dark times, indeed, and a lifetime ago.  Rearview mirror stuff.

–I have been printing a lot in the darkroom.  Nothing really specific, just printing, going through negatives from 2006, ’07, etc…current work too…35mm, 120…lots of stuff.  It is for an exhibit I would like to have next fall.  Some wise friends reminded me to not be too concerned with content because it was art schools that put forth the idea that a solo exhibit must have a theme.  There will always be a common thread running through the show.  At the very least, it is all my work.  I can’t help it if people get confused.  I’m not.

— I have been getting ready for a mountain bike race this weekend in the hill-town of Kostos and have already biked the route a few times.  I am eagerly looking forward to it–13 km of ups and downs, rocky, gravely, sandy farm roads, washed out and rutted. There are some short stretches of paved stuff, but thankfully not so much.  I have biked it already three times and my best time so far is 53 minutes, and that is after a 9 km uphill ride to get there.  I hope to catch a ride with some friends, so I’ll be fresh.  The weather this week is rainy off and on.  I am hoping for light winds and sun on the day.  It’s going to be a fun and muddy ride.

–That’s it, really.  Not much else to report.

–JDCM

In the shadow of Vesuvius…

By on February 2, 2015 in beauty, biking, darkroom work, Greece, John D.C. Masters, John Masters, Paros, skill and craft, spiritual journey, working

I have just returned from Naples.  I was surprised by many things.  The first was that it is a filthy, rundown, graffiti-stained city unlike any other that I have seen.  True.  In many ways it is a real dump.  Garbage everywhere…rotting, pollution blackened buildings in need of repair and restoration…Spray-painted graffiti on practically every surface you can imagine, including churches.  UNESCO should step in and put a few 100 million Euros into the place.  Or maybe the Camorra could use some of their influence to do something to improve the city at the heart of their criminal organization…Hmmm…

On the other hand, the place is chock-full of photo-ops.  It is an old, old city, dating back to the 2nd millennium B.C.E.  It has withstood the Greeks, Romans, the Bourbons, Napoleon and two world wars.  The most recent left the city all but razed.  Naples was the centerpiece of some of Mussolini’s greatest urban works, his arrogant attempt at a re-invention of the “empire.”  No wonder it looks broken.  It is.  The people, on the other hand seem to be taking it all in stride, as if to say, “we were here first and we will be here when you’re gone…”

Then there is Vesuvius.  Living in the shadow of a constant and active threat does something to a person, let alone a culture.  The volcano is everywhere, looming over Naples, a momento mori :  eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we could all be covered in volcanic ash (Pompeii) or liquified rock (Herculaneum).  I think the Neapolitans are a race all to themselves.  They have an element of piracy about them, an independence romanticized in the buccaneer, the privateer, the mercenary freebooter.  They are a swarthy bunch.

The museums were stunning.  Roman frescoes, mosaics…Caravaggio, Bruegel, et al…Pompeii was amazing.  The food was really superb.  The weather in late January is changeably mediterranean.   There was sun, clouds, rain, wind…Pretty much what one would expect from one of the oldest and busiest seaports in the world.  I will post some images on my Flickr page tomorrow so you can see some stuff that I saw.

Now I am back on Paros and the scirocco will be blowing most of the week.  Warm air out of the Libyan desert, full of yellow dust, microscopic sand in the air like jaundiced fog.  A sandstorm.  I feel terribly out of shape and need to get back on the bike for some serious work.  I have some printing I must address in the darkroom and the digital lab, both neglected commitments that I must fulfill.  In a few weeks, the gods-be-willing, I will have surpassed the half-century mark.  Busy month.

Detail of a Roman fresco. Note the chiaroscuro...

Detail of a Roman fresco. Note the chiaroscuro..

 

a wood panel detail by Polidoro da Caravaggio

a wood panel detail by Polidoro da Caravaggio

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

–JDCM