Internal Landscapes

“‘And I felt myself going. I was in a great deal of pain. It was a very frightening experience, but I began to slip, to just sort of feel myself going. And I remember trying to hold on, I’ll be ok, I’ll be ok, and it got to the point where I just couldn’t, and everything began to just become very quiet. And I can remember with every ounce of strength I had I wanted to say goodbye to my wife. It was important to me. And I did, I remember just turning my head, looking at her and saying, ‘I’m gonna die. Goodbye Joan.’ And I did.
It was then that I experienced what we call a near-death experience. For me there was nothing near about it. It was there. It was a total immersion in light, brightness, warmth, peace, security. I did not have an out-of-body experience, I did not see my body or anyone about me, I just immediately went into this beautiful bright light. It’s difficult to describe. Matter of fact, it’s impossible to describe. Verbally, it cannot be expressed. It’s something which becomes you and you become it. I could say that I was peace, I was love, I was the brightness. It was part of me.’

Goodbye, my friend.
Love will never end.
And I feel like you
And I breathe all truth.

Love is the lifebreath inside of me.
Love is the true light inside of me.
And I know you somehow,
As I hold you in my heart,
(Senses following me)
In my heart.
(Senses following me)

There’s a fire in the sky
And I know it’s you.
(Senses following me,
Senses following me.)
There’s a light that’s so bright
And I know it’s you,
(Senses following me)
I know it’s you.
(Senses following me)

And I dream like you
(Senses following me,
Senses following me.)
And I believe in truth.
(Senses following me,
Senses following me.)
For I was always there
And I will always be there.

‘And it’s just so beautiful. It was eternity. It’s like I was always there, and I will always be there… that my existence on earth was just a very brief instant. I could say that I was peace, I was love, I was the brightness. It was part of me.’”

[ Internal Landscapes – Anathema ]

I have a weird relationship with Internal Landscapes. I know it’s an important song for both Danny and Vincent Cavanagh – the latter spoke very fondly of it during the interview I had with him in 2012, and said they considered for it to be the title track of the album, they’re enthusiastic about the near-death experience monologue and so on – but I never got fully into it. I mean, yes, it’s a nice song and everything, but up until some time ago, I couldn’t relate to it at all. It just left me cold. Then, one evening, it happened: I was listening to it and suddenly realised just how deeply emotional it is, I got shivers all over and knew exactly what to do with it. (Interesting, it was the 50th time I was listening to the whole album – which means it was also the 50th time I listened to this song, as it is my least played on Weather Systems).
I once mentioned each of my project has an odd one out among the bunch – in this case, The Storm Before The Calm, which was split into two works. Well, here we get two odd ones out, as I decided to take a different approach while making Internal Landscapes: a diptych with a portrait and a landscape like the other works, but mingled. So I did a portrait with a faint overimpressed landscape, and a landscape with a faint portrait in it. I thought this was the best way to represente the oneness of all, the spiritual connection between the individuals and the whole world around them. (No wonder it took me a while to figure out such a concept, given it is as far away as it could be from my beliefs – or lack thereof).
I don’t exactly know why I chose Uriele to model for this photo: while I was having that fateful 50th listen and the song “spoke to me”, it pointed him itself. Like, I saw him in my head and knew he had to be, end of the story. And yeah, he did a great modelling job and showed the exact feeling I needed with very little direction (it felt kinda stupid to say aloud, “You must be reaching for the very spirit of the world around and the love that pervades everything”, so I keep it vague).

And here we go. After this photo, although there are only two left, the Weather Systems project is going to take an indefinite hiatus, the reasons of which I will explain in an upcoming post about how my long-term projects are doing.

The Lost Child

“Adrift on a silent sea.
The cold night surrounds me.
Black ice forms beneath
The waves of a childhood dream.
A far light hypnotised,
A voice calls from paradise, paradise
To here.

My light is fading now,
My heart is breaking now.
My light is fading now,
My heart is breaking now.

A child sings to me.
The mists rise blinding me.
I can’t find a way out of here
And the sound of angel dreams.
The stars fall into the sea.
The ice breaks, I’m pulled beneath,
Pulled beneath the waves.

My light is fading now,
My heart is breaking now.
My life is failing now,
My mind is drowning now.

But your hand reaches down
To reach down and pull me out and
Save me, save me, save me, save me,
Save me, save me, save me, save me,
Save me, save me, save me, save me.”

[ The Lost Child – Anathema ]

I’m getting the distinct impression that the Weather Systems project is like “everything or nothing at all”: first one year of silence, and then two works in two days. Consider I’ve got 75% of Internal Landscapes done and am just waiting for weather to be cooperative to complete it and you get what I mean. 

So, here is The Lost Child. Truth be told, it has proved to be quite a challenge for me. It was the first song which gave me a mental image for a photo, like the very first time I heard it: I thought of a monochromatic  half-naked me hidden in the woods (something similar to Shaman, but darker). This happened before I read the lyrics, which unfortunately did not mach my idea at all: as much as I liked it, among the icy sea, mist air and starry night, there was no place for woods.

Eventually, as I grew fonder and fonder of the album and the idea of a series of colour diptych stuck, I had to rule my original concep for this work even further out, but I couldn’t quite get it out of my head completely: this resulted in me shelving the song for time being and waiting to be near the completion of the project to face it again. Which is, like, now.

Then, the day after yesterday my mother and I went to the pinewood where we buried our cat Murka to pay her a visit, then wandered a bit around in search of some photographic ideas in the inspiring gloomy weather. The pinewood is right by the beach and as soon as I saw a view of the stormy sea through the trees, I got inspired and decided to revamp my original idea for The Lost Child with a bit of variation to fit the marine theme. After all, nighttime portraiture in a non-urban, non-arc-lit environment is currently far beyond my reach, fat chance I ever get a misty night in either of the two notoriously windy cities by the sea I live in, let alone ice sheets. I had muky weather, I had a distant light(house), I had the eerie-looking grove I wanted, so there we are.

Lightning Song

“Lightning splits the sky,
Shining blinding white,
And here I lie, almost asleep,
Reckoning in a place of peace.

And I feel I found my place
In time and space,
In hope and faith
And love I give.
My mind is clear,
I have no fear,
I shed no tears
For you, my dear.

This world is wonderful, so beautiful,
If only you could open up your mind and see.
Your world is everything you ever dreamed of,
If only you could open up your mind and see.

This world is wonderful, so beautiful,
If only you could open up your mind and see.
Your world is everything you ever dreamed of,
If only you could open up your mind and see
The beauty that is here,
The beauty that is here.”

[ Lightning Song – Anathema ]

This photo has been a pain to take. Seriously, this is the reason why I’ve been silent on the Weather Systems front for about a whole year.
Guess what, it’s the lightning’s fault. We don’t get many thunderstorms in Italy, and even when we do, we get more diffuse lightnings than actual thunderbolts. Besides, shooting lightnings is very difficult, so even when I finally got the thunderstorm, it took me nearly an hour to shoot a decent thunderbolt.
Once I had the weather half of the photo, I built the portrait in order to match it: the lightning was rather diagonal, so I flipped it horizontally (‘cause nothing’s perfect) and then built an opposite diagonal line with the lights and shadows in the portrait. It is an all in all simple image, but I hope it is powerful too. Just like the song, which sounds quite happy and sparkly but has a huge emotional depth. That’s why I have half a smile and am holding a cup of tea while contemplating the lightning: I wanted it to look as everyday as possible, enjoying some little pleasures (the cup of tea) while enjoying the sight of the storm from a safe shelter (the window). I really do love both the song and the photos, I hope you do as well.

The Beginnning And The End

“Inside this cold heart is a dream
That’s locked in a box that I keep
Buried a hundred miles deep,
Deep in my soul, in a place that’s surrounded
By aeons of silence.

And somewhere inside is the key
To everything I want to feel,
But the dark summer dawns of my memory
Are locked in a place that can never be.

Can someone please show me the way?
Can someone please help me?
‘Cause I cannot see and the silence is raging.
Silence is raging, ooh!

Silence, silence, fade into silence.
Silence, silence, fade into silence.
Memory, memory, inside is the key to a
Memory, memory, inside is the key to a memory.”

[ The Beginning And The End – Anathema ]

This song was the introduction for Weather Systems: it was released before the album itself as a preview of its general sound. Ever since the first time I heard it, I immediately related to it and realised it’s one of that songs that seem to have been written especially for me. I find a lot of myself in the lyrics, which really describe a period of my life I’ve been through recently, so I was eager to give it a visual rendition. Damn, it mentions a key to inner feelings and I constantly wear a key necklace which reminds me to keep my feelings as clear as possible.
I already mentioned how this was a weird and slightly frustrating afternoon. Interestingly enough, this was the photo that shook it up and brought us the right creative mood from which eventually These Woods Breathe Evil sprung, which is very fitting with the lyrics. Taking the self-portrait was not too much of a big deal as I had BriarRose and Richard’s help (in particular for the shadow on my eyes), while for the companion photo I opted for shot of the sun through the branches of the trees. Although it was actually sunset, it had a very warm light which reminded me of a beginning, something like an awakening like a deep slumber much like that of the wintery trees. To get the best effect, I was particularly careful to set the focus on the foremost branches in order to give the whole photo a neat, sharp look – yep, that’s the secret about it.

The Storm Before The Calm

“Never, never, never, never ever, ever worry,
I will, I will always, always be there for you.
Found you, found you, I will never ever
Leave you, never, I will always be here with you,
Getting better, better, better, better, better, better.

It’s getting colder, I’m getting colder, colder, it’s getting colder.
Let it get colder until I can’t feel anything at all.
It’s getting colder, it’s getting colder, colder.

Come on, come on, on me, on me,
Touching, laughing, ha ha, love me, love me
For me, holding, watching, loving,
Getting better, better, better, better, better, better.

It’s getting colder, I’m getting colder, colder, it’s getting colder.
Let it get colder until I can’t feel anything at all.
It’s getting colder, it’s getting colder, colder, I’m getting colder.
Let it get colder until I can’t feel anything at all.

It’s the shadow.
It’s the shadow, it’s the shadow, it’s the shadow, it’s the shadow,
It’s the shadow, it’s the shadow, it’s the shadow, it’s the shadow,
It’s the shadow, it’s the shadow, it’s the shadow, it’s the shadow inside.

It ebbs and flows and comes and goes
And rips you up and lets you go.
It eats inside and splits your mind.
As you search around for others’ kind,
You gather strength from the depths,
Fight the fight from day till night, till night, till night, till night, till night, till night.

This beautiful feeling soars over the skies
Moving through my body, out my mind.
It rises up and floods my brain.
This is fucking insane, this is fucking insane!

Am I still here as one with the fear?
Am I still alive as one with the fear?
Am I still here as one with the fear?
Am I still alive as one with the fear?
Am I still here as one with the fear?
Am I still alive as one with the fear?
Am I still here as one with the fear?
Am I still alive? I’m still fucking here.
Am I still here?”

[ The Storm Before The Calm – Anathema ]

Apparently, each and every project or series I work on must have an entry that’s the “odd one out”. The Storm Before The Calm is that for Weather Systems. If you give the song a listen you will easily understand why: for one thing, it is over nine minutes long, for another it has two climatic moments which split it in two parts with very distinctive feelings and emotions. Usually, such a work would require a diptych, but since all the works in the projects are diptychs to begin with, I just decided to split it into two parts: The Storm and The Calm.
The story behind this work is rather interesting: I had the two parts perfectly mapped out in my mind since spring, but they required the right conditions to be shot, which meant fitting weather in Alghero (I necessarily had to do them there because Trieste doesn’t have beaches, either sandy or rocky). The Calm was actually the first work I completed for the project – I shot it during the break between my autumn exam session in September and the start of the term in October, while the sea in Sardinia was still warm enough (I ever had a quick swim after I was done). Originally, I wanted it to have a cloudy feel, but it was my last day of holidays and while it was perfectly cloudy when I went out of the house with my mother, it became sunnier by the time we reached the sea. The photos turned out unexpectedly good nevertheless, so I stored them on my computer waiting for the right occasion to shoot the first part, which occourred now. On a side note, The Calm is the last photo I took with my Canon EOS 1000D camera that I’m publishing, as I purchased my 5D the next week end.
About the photos themselves, the first part, The Storm, is meant to represent the first five minutes of the song with their electronic, psychedelic storm. I intended for it to be windier with my hair flowing all around, but I’m very satisfied with it nonetheless: it has a very distinct fashion feel I totally love (while the stormy feeling is given by the photo of the foam). Afte the electronic part, the song has one in which it builds up until a climax (at about 6:45) which really feels like emerging from the water and taking a deep, relieving breath before finally laying to the shore, to safety: this is exactly what I tried to represent in the second photo, The Calm.

The Gathering Of The Clouds

“Searched the whole world,
Found I can’t compare.
Searched the whole world,
Found I can’t compare.

But we’re here because we’re here,
We’re here because we’re here
And there’s nothing to fear,
No, there’s nothing to fear.
But we’re here because we’re here,
We’re here because we’re here
And there’s nothing to fear,
Yeah, there’s nothing to fear.

Time is not what it would seem,
The life we live is like a dream.
Release belief, let it wash over me,
Let love reveal what I feel, what I feel,
What I feel, what I feel.

All that I’ve seen, all that I feel
All I could be, is happening to me.
All that I’ve seen, all that I feel
All I could be is happening to me.
All that I’ve seen, all that I feel
All I could be, is happening to me.
All that I’ve seen, all that I feel
All I could be is happening to me.

Searched the whole world,
Found I can’t compare.
Searched the whole world,
Found I can’t compare.

Fight for what you believe in, dare to live your dream,
In this life don’t be afraid of yourself, don’t be afraid.
Fight for what you believe in, dare to live your dream,
In this life don’t be afraid of yourself, don’t be afraid.
Fight for what you believe in, dare to live your dream,
In this life don’t be afraid of yourself, don’t be afraid.
Fight for what you believe in, dare to live your dream,
In this life don’t be afraid of yourself, don’t be afraid.

Time is not what it would seem,
The life we live is like a dream.
Release belief, let it wash over me,
Let love reveal what I feel, what I feel,
What I feel, what I feel.

All that I’ve seen, all that I feel
All I could be, is happening to me.
All that I’ve seen, all that I feel
All I could be is happening to me.
All that I’ve seen, all that I feel
All I could be, is happening to me.
All that I’ve seen, all that I feel.”

[ The Gathering Of The Clouds – Anathema ]

You know, when it comes to Weather Systems it’s really hard for me to pick a favourite song. I mean, except for Untouchable, Part 1, which is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I’ve ever heard. Nevertheless, I think The Gathering Of The Clouds might qualify as my favourite right after the two Untouchable. I always, always shiver while it builds towards its climax, I literally can’t listen to it without feeling the need to catch my breath after its abrupt, superb string ending. And of course, I just see myself in the lyrics. I’ve rarely heard a song that has such a strong effect on my emotions and of course it was one of the first ideas I had for the project.
What you can see above perfectly corresponds to what I saw in my mind while listening to it: a breathtaking view of Capo Caccia (near Alghero, Italy) with heavy clouds above the rocks and the sea and me standing in front of it. An impressive 200 meters limestone cliff that drops into the sea, it’s one of my favorite places on Earth, it gives me the same exact feelings of that song: the noble, splendid and terrifying that merge into the sublime (check Kant to see what I mean). I knew all along that could be the one and only place where I could shoot this photo. The problem was just to get a cloudy day in Alghero while I was there on holiday (apparently they become frequent only whenever I’m not there), which means I brought all the clothes I needed for this photo back and forth at least three times before I could finally go there and shoot the photo (I had a very clear idea of the styling for this photo too). Well, at least I got a full-frame camera in the meantime, which improved the overall quality of the work.
In case you’re wondering, yes, I was standing just on the edge of the cliff, in front of Foradada Isle, with strong wind all around me. I was very cautious so I would not say I was in danger, but I love this song and photo so much I wanted to do things properly, including taking some risks. The outcome totally justifies it and the wait, it’s extremely rewarding when you can get an image from your head to the camera exactly like you wanted.
About my modelling work here, I was afraid I’d end up looking like an emotionless porcelain doll like I often do, but I basically playing the song in my mind while posing, which gave me the right mood and expression. I really can’t put in words how much this work means to me, soI just hope you can get it from the photo itself.

Sunlight

“Sunlight failed, but only for a while.
In the moonlight pale someone made me smile.
The shining almost took me, but I made it through that night
And, in the morning, life it graced me and I ran for miles
Into sunlight, in a billion dreams that are lost and won,
And moonlight. In spite of all you’ve seen, there’s only one way out:
Say you will love me until I leave the world.

Say you will love me until I leave the world.
In a billion dreams that are lost and won.
Say you will love me until I leave the world.
In spite of all you’ve seen, there’s only one way out.”

[ Sunlight – Anathema ]

The first work for my Weather Systems project is Sunlight. I really do hope the photo speaks for itself, in particular if accompanied by the music and the lyrics, but I’d love to spend some words about it anyways.
There’s no particular reason why I chose it to open the project, except I got it ready first. As promised, it is a diptych with one photo portraying the weather phenomenon from the title and lyrics and the other the related mood. Sunlight is a happy song. Yet, I think its more about serenity and optimism than an outburst of joy: that’s why I had Riccardo look content and serene rather than overjoyed. There’s confidence in his pose that expresses trust in the future while I tried to give the photo a generally relaxed atmosphere. On the other hand, rather than banally just shooting the sun with some landscape I tried to take a peculiar photo of it, something that would subtly suggest the sunlight: that’s how I came up with the idea of trying to turn that branch into a candle of sort.
To be honest, the idea was rather sudden, I had it just the day before shooting: at first I wasn’t expecting snow and this photoshoot was supposed to be very grim, but when I checked the weather forecast I was overjoyed because I’d been looking forward to shooting in the snow for years literally. I thought snow would perfectly fit the song because it is luminous as it can be, and here is the finished work.

Weather Systems

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m glad to introduce to you my new long-term project: Weather Systems.

I know I already have a handful of half-finished ones on the go, but you know, ideas stuck at random and I just can’t help it.

Once again, it’s a project inspired by music: Anathema’s latest album (and namesake of the project), Weather System, was released earlier this year. 2012 has been blessed with so many amazing records that it’s really hard to pick a favourite one, but this album really gets close to the title. The amazing blend of beautiful music, essential arrangements, breath-taking lyrics and impressive emotional depth of each song makes Weather Systems a real masterpice and a highly inspiring piece of music. Indeed, once I got used to the songs enough to stop crying each time I’d listen to them (even on a train on my way to interviewing Vincent Cavanagh), I immediately started getting images and ideas for photos, and they were so consistent that I decided to develop them into a proper series.

Weather Systems is not strictly a concept album, yet it has a common theme that touches all the songs. Weather conditions and parts of the day used as metaphores to descrive the “internal landscapes” of people: their feelings, their reactions to particular situations they may go through, their fears, hopes, dreams, even near-death experiences. The emotional depth of each song is enough to inspire a photograph, but this general idea behind the album amplifies it all and inspired me with images that would give a double rendition of it.

The project will thus consist of ten diptychs – one for each song, except one song which will have two – and will feature an image of nature, sky or weather matched with a portrait to represent both the emotions and the metaphore of the song. This is the common ground on which the series will be built and will give it a stronger cohesion than ever.

Currently, I have two works done for the Weather Systems project: one will be released tomorrow, while the other will have to wait a bit (because it’s the second diptych for the song I decided to split). You will be able to see the progress by selecting the related tag on this blog, or by checking the related gallery on my deviantART. I really do hope you’ll enjoy this work, for I’ll be literally pouring my heart into it.