Photography is, of course, part of my work in this cloistered time: making pictures, thinking about pictures, writing about pictures, organizing picture files. This image from two years ago appeared, and I remembered the delight of encountering the play of reflections over Carlo Maratta’s 17thcentury portrait of Alexander VII, the light giving the subject both an open mind and clear speech. And I remember debating whether to take the picture at all.
The portrait is at the fascinating Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia, where I’ve been fortunate to have had the opportunity to photograph several times. There was a show of my work there in 2018 and 2019, which I called “In the Light of the Present” (Nella Luce del Presente: Imagini dei Colli Albani). It was comprised of over forty images from the Palazzo Chigi, the Villino Volterra and Rome. Though I totally overlooked it when putting the show together, this small image literally embodies the show’s chosen title.
In a recent dream, I was happy to have stopped to take a photograph of a blue, wooden building that didn’t fit an idea of “my work”. A friend with whom I shared the dream remarked “ But surely that doesn’t happen to you after all these years in photography”. It does; perhaps even more as time goes on. I have encouraged students to attend to those things that speak to them, especially those speaking quietly. I hope I didn’t give the impression that it would be easy.
There is challenge in dwelling in the light of the present, one of the many temporal challenges recent months have brought into focus.
In the present, I have a new awareness of how light moves through our house and over the land each day. Rothko Window is an image that has come from that appreciation. Today, local light has been inflected by dust from the distant Sahara. Sheltering in place, we experience the deeply connected physical world – its beauty, bounty, flowers and weeds, power and fragility, grand gestures and microorganisms…
As an image, this figure with its layer of light evokes a spacious mind and authentic speech. Those elements bring to mind the explorations into signed and spoken language by friends Penny Boyes Braem and Virginia Volterra. They bring light, clarity and reflection to their important research in communication.
Here is the new Rothko Window, which concerns layers of light. It is accompanied by a picture from years ago (taken from a publication – maybe the current bout of organizing will turn up the original). In the latter, light makes its certain and delicate way through a paper pattern at architect friend Nan Plessas’ Berkeley window. I recall the feeling of making that picture – on film, without hesitation – with delight.
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All images © Diane Farris, All rights reserved.