Day 118 - Lazy Swiss

The Swiss embassy just went AWOL today.


No notice on website. No reasons cited.
Pathetic. Just when I thought that only third-world embassy takes capricious time offs. Oh, and not to mention, their embassy is a summer villa sits on a hill that sits on top of this gorgonzilla set of stairs...


...and this nothing compared to the 2 hours of getting lost going there, because there's no public transport nearby (yes, they're too rich!). An Italian man looked at me pitifully in the tram, and helped without me asking. He saw my doodle of a map and told me the right bus to take. "Scendere a piazza... e prenda l'autobus nova cento dieci..." Something like that.

That, and a couple of things along the way made the trip a nice one. The villa is located on an upper-class neighborhood, and I kept on smelling a whiff of jasmine freesia. The gardens behind this 4 meter wall must be pretty...


This is the Swiss Embassy's neighbor. It reminds me of Patrick Blanc's vertical garden project, the Mur Vegetal.

Then there's a house which has a blooming orange tree on their front yard. It was the first time I smelled orange blossoms. It was a shy and delicate floral scent, only with the slightest touch of mandarin, which they often exaggerate in the perfume version.


Oh. I forgot to explain. I went there to get a Swiss visa for traveling.
(Update) In the end I decided not to go to Switz- because I couldn't be bothered to go there again.

Day 115 - Solo Notte

Imagine the nights in the city, walking to Piazzola's haunting music, 'Oblivion' (The music will take a few second to load, then press play):





Sad, eh? Welcome to Rome, at midnight.
Coming from me, these photographs are a little cliché. Moody orange lights, lonely figures traversing the night, a glacé of sadness and ephemerality... It has similar themes with the one I worked with during the IB years in Melbourne. It seems that once I get the gist of it, I can continuously producing this genre of photographs. Yes, yes, an orchestra of loneliness (how ironic!). Speaking of Melbourne, these nights I kept on thinking: "I don't want to leave Rome... " just like how it was back then. Roma, ti amo.

Day 113 - The Modern Rome

The other side of the ancient Rome. Our architecture theory professor took us on a tour around the modern areas of Rome, the suburbs, the 1930s olympic sport complex, and the Renzo Piano's Parco della Musica. It was the Italian Liberation Holiday... so he took us for an extra long class that lasted for six hours. And what we saw was...










Lastly, hunky marble guys posing around the olympic tracks. Each of these marble statues represent a sport of both modern and ancient origin.

Day 108 - Donna e Agricoltura

Today is a nice and sunny day. Like most sunny day, I thought that something nice is bound to happen... and so it did!

I took these photographs last month at the Donna e Agricoltura (Women and Agriculture) market. It is a monthly market for agricultural products made by women owned businesses held at Piazza Trilussa. The products they sell are tourist oriented: black and white truffle sauces, specialty olive oils, organic honey, cured meat, cheese, wine, etc. It is a fun market to go to because there is a lot of food sampling, free music, and a festivesque atmosphere.





The photograph below was edited and printed for the photo class portraits series. The lady sells organic chocolate spreads (with specialty flavors such as chili, cinnamon, and no-milk) and gives away free tasty samplers.


At this month's market, I decided to give this photograph to the lady herself. I have no use of it, I thought, and she would appreciate it very much. I didn't expect anything but a thanks and a small talk, which would be nice since my Italian is getting to be very rustic. Random, awkward, strange... but hey, what's the harm in giving something to a stranger?

And so I went, on this nice golden afternoon. I gave it to her and she was surprised, happy, but in a nonchalant way. As a her thanks, she offered me one of the chocolate spread she is selling! I picked the chili chocolate and went because she seem to be busy. In the end I did not get the small talk I wanted, but, a jar of chocolate is really YUMMM!

Day 107 - Just Me

Can't you just see this being hung in a contemporary art museum and sold for $5'000 a piece? Imagine the title of the exhibition: "Two Face of a Mind." The description will go like so: "Two Face of a Mind is an exploration on biploarity and the ambiguous nature of..."


Beh...

Day 103 - Stranieri Conosciuti

'Stranieri Conosciuti: Strangers who are familiar to us' is a photo essay project for my photography class. Inspired by the Rose Man shot, I started of with the theme of photographing immigrants. What eventually emerge out of this search is a series of photographs of street peddlers of the tourist Rome: rose men, bubble gun seller, street performers, and gypsies. They are people whose gaze we often try to avert on the street, and yet amidst the place of transient tourists, it is them who becomes the familiar faces of the street.

Three weeks, 365 photographs later, here are the classic 8 that I presented on Tuesday. They were lovingly printed on A3 semi-gloss:

Day 101 - Snailolitá

The snail has been curling up in her shell for the past two days due to diarrhea. She's been eating 4-months-old baby food, the pear pureé ones, and is going to upgrade to a 6-month-old baby food with the pumpkin flavor tonight. Exciting, eh?! Hahaha, probably not. Anyhow, I was able to get up and walk around Piazza Navona on this beautiful Sunday (immigrant hunting, as usual), and here are the girls that she saw:




I am particularly attached to the first picture up there. She is such a princess: sitting on her silvery white horse daddy, overlooking her would-be-subjects. Aaah.. I wish I am at the age where I can hop on somebody's shoulder just like that. Mmm... not a good idea for somebody my age!!!

Day 93-99 - Mangiare! Mangiare! Mangiare!!!

The title translates to 'Eat! Eat! Eat!!!' and it's a short story about our love for Italian food and Lester who eats a lot. Enjoy! with a side-note that the music-video synchronization is out of whack.


Online Videos by Veoh.com

This is my first animated stills video produced with Photoshop CS3. It is a part of 10 video series produced with four other friends (Francis, Khairul, Lester and Oren) for the Italian class' Talent Show. It took 8 people and a couple of hours to set the feast and direct the photography (notice: it's food for 8 people that he's finishing up there), a 3AM night to figure out how to animate using photoshop, an entire afternoon to mass-edit and arrange them in order, and another night to add the music and render. It was a behemoth of an effort for something which receives no grade. But that is also what makes it fun.

Production note: This film was inspired by fact: Lester can actually eat this much and more. You are seeing 217 individual photograph stills in this one and a half minute, with the average of 3 stills per second. The music is 'La Redecouverte' from Amélie.

High quality stills from the production:






Coming soon in HD DVD.

Day 93 - Girl at Termini

I went to Esquillino this weekend to shoot for my immigrant/gypsy streetlife photo essay, and on the way at Termini, this little girl looked at me as if she was acting in a horror movie.

I've been thinking of posting my current photo works on the Roman immigrants and gypsy, The Life of Scarpa, and (just freshly made yesterday) video stills of 'Mangiare! Mangiare! Mangiare!!!' and 'Night Tramming at Trastevere.' But as you can tell, with so many things going on at the moment that I ended up posting whatever is most convenient at the time. Oh well!

Here's a giant preview on the photos that I've been taking: