I often find myself walking along the Adige in spring, when I go to buy bunches of fresh asparagus from a nearby farm. And then I always end up wandering through this stretch of the river, which is still wild and barely touched by people. You find all sorts of things on the riverbed: you really get the feeling of something that passes through and changes everything. That’s why Eliot always comes to mind:
I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river
Is a strong brown god-sullen, untamed and intractable,
Patient to some degree, at first recognised as a frontier;
Useful, untrustworthy, as a conveyor of commerce;
Then only a problem confronting the builder of bridges.
The problem once solved, the brown god is almost forgotten
By the dwellers in cities-ever, however, implacable.
Keeping his seasons and rages, destroyer, reminder
Of what men choose to forget. Unhonoured, unpropitiated
By worshippers of the machine, but waiting, watching and waiting.
His rhythm was present in the nursery bedroom,
In the rank ailanthus of the April dooryard,
In the smell of grapes on the autumn table,
And the evening circle in the winter gaslight.
These shots were taken with a Horizon that has been with me for years and never stops rewarding me. The film is Ilford Delta 100. In digital post-production I’m always torn between closing down the shadows and midtones, or leaving the image brighter, even if it ends up less dramatic.
Share this post:
Comments
No comments found