savannah photographic workshop

I had been wanting a leather bomber jacket for awhile, and heard Florence was a great place for leather goods, so my quest, when I got there, was to see “David,” the Uffizi, and find a jacket I liked, with some random wandering the streets in between. We were staying just outside the city and when we drove in on our first morning, I grabbed the first parking space I saw. Immediately, we saw a leather goods shop right next to our parking space. They had a jacket style that seemed exactly what I was looking for, but only one in my size. It was the first place we shopped and I was reluctant to commit without looking around some more, so we spent the rest of the day shopping, but never found anything even close. First thing the next morning we went straight to the shop, but no parking was nearby, so I dropped Barbara off and drove on until I found a space. A few minutes later, as I entered the shop, Barbara’s face and the shake of her head told me right away that it was gone. The saleswoman, in halting English, told me how sorry she was, but that a customer had come in after us the day before and bought it. Knowing I would not be happy with anything else at that point, we concentrated on the rest of our casual itinerary. I don’t know if the museum layout is the same today, but when we went into the Accademia Gallery, from the lobby, we stepped into a dark hallway and at the other end he stood there, spectacular, glowing in a pool of light. Slowly, as our eyes adjusted to the low light in the hallway, we could see five of Michelangelo’s Slave sculptures, raw and muscular and more powerful in some ways than the polished, finished “David” that he had created earlier in his life. The Uffizi, the food, the wine, walking the streets–it was all so good that my disappointment over the jacket gradually receded. Three months later, when I opened my Christmas present from Barbara, it was the jacket. In the few minutes it had taken me to park the car she had bought it, arranged shipping, and coached the clerk, without benefit of any Italian language, on how disappointed to act. Even thirty six years later, I have never been able to surprise her so well.

For more photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index

I have a pretty good sense of direction. That, combined with a good, large scale, Michelin map, and I can navigate my way with little difficulty, a handy skill in the days before GPS tools were commercially available. For the drive from Venice to Florence though, I decided to take a more casual approach, just pointing in the general direction of Florence, and figured road signs along the way would keep me going, nominally, in the right direction. That worked pretty well for a while, staying on two lane blacktop for a more interesting drive than the autostrata would have been. Slowly, the road began to narrow, and the center line disappeared, but I expected that to be temporary and that that trend would reverse itself at some point. When the asphalt ended and the road turned into a dirt track I had to acknowledge that, even in Italy, all roads do not lead to Rome, or Florence in this case. I had the map. but now I did not know where I was, so it didn’t help much. About the time the road turned into a rut, I noticed a tavern next to the road, and if I must ask for directions, then a bar seems like a good, dual purpose place for that. I went in and asked, but of the several patrons hanging out, no one spoke English, and I did not speak Italian (still don’t), but 5-6 guys came out to the car, spread the map on the hood and carried on an incomprehensible (to me) conversation, all pointing in different directions. That didn’t help much and I imagine I just backtracked the paved road until I found some better signage, but before leaving I went back into the bar and somehow made myself clear to the barman that I wanted a bottle of red wine. He reached into a bin of empty wine bottles, pulled one out, rinsed it out, and filled it from a tap on a keg along the back of the bar. He jammed a cork into the top and charged me the equivalent of $1. It was delicious, but I suspect that had as much to do with context as it did with the grape. The event reminded me how important it is to just go get lost sometimes.

It was a rainy night in Venice, and my 39th birthday. It was not a heavy rain, but enough to clear the streets and make the place feel deserted. The dark corners of the city had a mysterious air, like scenes from a Cold War era espionage movie set in eastern Europe. We had just the one afternoon and evening to visit before heading to Florence the next morning, and after doing some aimless rambling to get a feel for the place, we realized it was getting close to closing time for the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, and we were too far away to walk there in time. We had also intended to take a gondola ride (cliche that it is, you have to do it at least once), so we hired the first boatman we could find and asked him to take us to the museum. Going by canals was a much more direct route. He took us through narrow waterways and then across the Grand Canal, putting us out onto the side of the museum facing the canal. We stepped over a small fence and crossed the patio, stopping to admire the Marino Marini statue of “The Little Horseman” with its removable phallus, and then stepped into the galleries. We rushed through to see as much as we could before closing and then left through the main door where we noticed there was an entrance fee we had missed with our “alternate” gateway. A little more ambling and we found a place to have a nice Birthday dinner. We sat outdoors, in a fabric-tented space and listened to the rain. I remember a vignette of a man running by with his coat pulled over his head, heading for shelter. The restaurant was empty so the maitre’d shooed away our waiter (who spoke no English) and waited on us himself, entertaining us with tales of his time in America working on a cruise ship. Earlier in the day I had bought a yellow bow tie with a paisley pattern (I don’t know why; I almost never wear bow ties) so I went to the Men’s Room and put it on, to dress up a bit for the evening. After Chateaubriand for Two, and a fabulous dessert (I only remember it was something chocolate), we finished our visit with a late night stroll through the Piazza San Marco. A little rain never hurt anyone.

For more photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index

Although the photographer seen here is Barbara, it does not follow that the person crawling up to peer over the edge of this mountain is me. Nope. I can see what’s NOT there from back here, thank you. We were continuing our first trip, traveling from Liechtenstein (see last week’s post, https://savannahphotographicworkshop.com/) back through Switzerland and into northern Italy, making our way toward Venice. Along our route there was a spot with a cable car up to the top, for skiing in the winter (if you are crazy), and sightseeing when there’s no snow. We rode up to check it out. Wow! My experience of mountains had, at that point, been limited to the Smokies and the southern Appalachians. I don’t think I had ever been above the tree line, and if so, not by much. When we stepped out of the cable car (about 3000 meters up), there was a very large sign, in four languages, that said, essentially, if you die, it’s not our problem. Walking out to explore, we heard a sound, a song, flowing gently in the wind. Seeking that out, we found a group of nuns (the black clad group in the background) conducting a rite. Barbara is Catholic and she said it was a Jubilee Celebration for one of them; I’ll defer to her greater knowledge of that sort of thing.

For more photos, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index

It was the first trip Barbara and I ever took together. It was also my first ever trip out of the USA. Arriving in some place I had read about, seen pictures of, and thought of as exotic and/or mysterious was sensory overload, trying to take it all in, trying to fix a memory long term. In my head I’m sure I was going, “…there’s the Rhine, and Switzerland, and OMG there’s the Alps, and we’re in Liechtenstein, a Fairy Tale place…,” and as a more seasoned traveler now, I miss some of that naive wonderment. What I remember now is dreamlike. We had landed in Zurich, rented a car and headed in a random, easterly direction. We had a flight home scheduled two weeks later, from Milan. Everything between arrival and departure was ours to make up as we went along. The second day, we had crossed into Liechstenstein and around lunch time saw a roadside cafe/tavern. We stopped and were ushered to tables on a back deck, built hanging off the side of an Alp (not one of any particular distinction, as far as I know). It was cool and brisk, but warm sitting in the sun. As we ate lunch and had a beer, a soft whoosh sound was a hang glider spiraling, floating slowly past us, down from the highest altitudes into the Rhine valley. It was all perfect stillness. To try to suspend the moment we had a second beer. And there was no consideration of moving on. We asked for a room in the small hotel there. They were full, but called a friend down the street who rented a guest room and it was available. Looking out the room’s window the next morning, I’m sure I heard Sister Maria singing, “The hills are alive….”

For more photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index

The Grand Finale of Streak Week: 1543 people took off all their clothes and ran from south campus to north campus. Earlier in the week students at the University of South Carolina had set a record for the largest group streak at 300. Not to be outdone by Gamecocks, word spread across campus that the Dawgs would attempt to break that record. After the confrontations with Athens’ finest earlier in the week, the administration quietly put out the word that any events au natural should be confined to school property. So, on a beautiful, balmy Thursday evening, 1543 people set a record that still stands. We know the number because campus security stationed officers at every entrance to the finish area and counted them as they came in. Earlier the same day another unique moment came when five guys sky-streaked, jumping out of an airplane wearing nothing but parachutes, and landed on the intramural fields.

For more photos of the Finale of Streak Week, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/gallery/UGA-Streak-Week-Part-3/G0000hAtbpzmb5_0

Continuing Streak Week from my last post, passions ran high as culture wars were in full force. Lester Maddox, streaked by several men while speaking, was on campus campaigning for the Democratic nomination in the Georgia gubernatorial election, running against George Busbee. William Shockley, who shared the 1956 Nobel Prize for Physics, was also at UGA to debate his theory that non-White peoples were genetically inferior to Whites. In an early example of what is now called cancelling, he was chased from the auditorium and campus and no debate happened. To be clear, I find any notion of racial superiority abhorrent, but I also believe preventing a disagreeable opinion from being debated is wrong. The only way to defeat an argument is to offer a better argument. The Free Speech clause of the First Amendment must protect even the most vile and offensive speech, or it is an empty promise. Trigger warnings and safe spaces are for children. (Next week’s final post from Streak Week will show setting the record for the largest streak in the country, a record that still stands.)

For more photographs of the middle part of Streak Week, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/gallery/UGA-Streak-Week-Part-2/G0000oS5z0PWZaEo/

It was beautiful early springtime weather at the end of Winter Quarter at the University of Georgia. A colleague from The Red and Black, the daily student newspaper, was at my apartment that Monday evening when we heard there was a disturbance outside the high rise dorms along Baxter Avenue, so we hurried over. (No cell phones then, or 24/7 news coverage; not even a local TV station in Athens, so I don’t know how we heard.) Streaking had been happening around the country and a couple of people had dropped trou and drew a small crowd. Athens police overreacted by firing tear gas into the crowd drawing more students out, in a less than friendly mood. This happened the first of the week, for a couple of nights, but calmer heads prevailed and the students eventually even cleaned up the mess. It was the beginning of an eventful week.

For more photographs from the first part of Streak Week, go to: https://www.billdurrence.com/gallery/UGA-Streak-Week-Part-1/G0000b_D9MgCzmSw/

Continuing the Discovery launch from last week’s post; the afternoon before the scheduled launch day, NASA bused media out to several areas close around the launch pad so photographers could set up remote cameras, which would be triggered at the moment of launch. Those are places too close for safety of any human presence during the launch. After some time doing that, approaching twilight, NASA did the Sunset Rollback, moving the support structures away from the shuttle for this photo op.

For previous blog posts, go to https://savannahphotographicworkshop.com/

For almost thirty years, I had a great job, essentially being paid to wander around the world and take photographs of whatever caught my fancy. It was more complicated than that, and there were plenty of chores I had to do as well, but in my retirement I choose to remember the wonderful (wonder-filled) experiences I had. This one was the launch of Discovery on September 29, 1988, about two and a half years after the Challenger explosion. The night before the launch NASA rolled the structures away from the shuttle, lit it up, and took media out closer to photograph it.

I am in a Monday morning men’s coffee group and this week someone brought up an article on AI that talked about how fake videos can be created showing people saying things they never said, and the deceit is indiscernible. That made me think of this photo, because, although this is the moon from that evening, that is not where it was then. A pretty simple double exposure created the composite. Early in my career I read someone espousing “visual literacy” as an educational need. That’s probably true now more than ever, but “lying” in a medium that seems to be straight forward documentation has always been an option. There is an old saw in the photo business that the camera doesn’t lie, but that is a dangerous assumption. People do, and the camera is just a tool.

For more photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index