Walking here, it is simple to become distracted by the exquisite details the light reveals.
I could walk here, all day every day, for 100 years, and I'm sure I would find new things ... every single time.
Sometimes it's the light, sometimes it's just me looking extra hard.
I love this city.
I took this photograph and, when I looked at it in Photoshop, there was nothing I needed to do to it.
It made me think about the etymology of the word photography ...
'It was created from the Greek roots φωτός (phōtos), genitive of φῶς (phōs), "light" and γραφή (graphé) "representation by means of lines" or "drawing", together meaning "drawing with light".
I am learning to read the light here. To know where to go at what hour. And if I get right, then the ordinary becomes extraordinary ... by virtue of the light.
Amedeo Modigliani.
Every day here, I wander these ancient streets at some point.
And every day, I see something extraordinary.
I love this photograph. I love the art, and then I love way the tyre track has moved the chalk down and out of the confines of the original drawing.
And that's the other thing about life here in Genova. It's never just ordinary. It's never just street art, or light..
You know when you just happen to be in the right place at the right time ...?
That happened today. I have been losing myself, regularly, in Genova's centro storico. The ancient heart of this complicated and beautiful city.
I love to walk down through the cool, narrow alleyways called caruggi ... down to the port and pop out into the light. Just for a little bit, before heading back into the caruggi to climb the hill, heading for one of the oldest parts of the city. It's been more than 2,000 years since people began living there.
These days, I'm searching for seats in the shade ... places to sit and write this book I've been writing forever.
But today, when I arrived back in the light of Piazza Matteotti, I noticed they were hanging the exhibition poster ... for the Vivian Maier Exhibition.
I couldn't resist attempting to capture it. I think, perhaps, she might have enjoyed this photograph.
I have finally begun work on that Genova book I've been working on for years ... but with a plan. And with deadlines.
I am a photographer and a writer but I am not gifted in the area of organising something as complex as this book I've been circling.
A good friend of mine came to stay at the weekend ... Sunday morning, Leah sat me down, and made me stay there. She questioned me, regarding my idea of the book, and then guided me through the next few weeks. When she left, I had a folder containing a schedule and a plan for the book.
Of course ... being me I have already side-tracked a little, as I search through the thousands of photographs I have taken of Genova, I'm realising just how many images I haven't quite taken through the digital equivalent of the darkroom process.
I don't do much to them, most of the time, but I do like to go over each image.
And so I am discovering that, back in September last year, I went wandering after the rain and found the image there at the top of this post.
And there was this .. just patiently waiting from that time I was down in Porto Antico and the light was exquisite.
My photography always returns when I have some free time ... or is that, I return to my photography.
My head needs to be a little clearer than it has been lately. Last week was particularly chaotic as I pulled off a few minor miracles ...
Today is Sunday, and I slipped out into the morning searching for coffee and ended up with a camera full of photographs.
I found the light exquisite and ended up staying out for hours, wandering in the medieval heart of Genova.
