Marco Ryan – Travel and Landscape photographer based in Cairo, Egypt
The Italian Riviera has for years been a playground for the rich and famous. The once quiet fishing villages where time and modern convenience had for so long passed by without the most casual of glances, have been transformed into chic resorts, full of designer boutiques, restaurants and bars advertising or sponsored by a leading champagne. A plethora of expensive yachts gently bob up and down in the water, as if nodding in agreement with the seemingly senseless waste of money lavished within these towns.
Portofino is perhaps at the top of that glittering tree. The presence of Hermes, Gucci, Dolce and Gabbana, alongside Rolex Phillipe Patek and Cartier in the small streets nestling the harbour provide even the most unobservant of visitors a clue as to the type of person this town thrives on.
Our own arrival was perhaps less ostentatious but more authentic. We took a five-minute train ride from Camogli to Santa Margarita and then the public bus into Portofino itself. The graffiti and dirt of a working train station provided an amusing comparison to the refinement of Portfolio. The anonymity of our arrival allowed us to blend into the town and observe – as much as any group of photographers laden with lenses can blend into any small ritzy port!
Portofino is one of those paces that at some time you should visit. A great place to sit and watch the wealthy at play, it still has a charm and an authenticity despite it current role in Riviera life. Perhaps as the season had not really started we saw Portofino at its best. I am not sure that I would have regarded wit with such compassion in high season full of – as one British boat owner was overheard to remark – champagne communists.
From a photographic perspective the colors, the light, the reflection in the water or the boutique windows were a wonderful surprise, and provided the canvas on which I could experiment with “painting” my images.
I seemed to have hit a bit of a creative slump these last few days though. My images just don’t have the punch I had been hoping for at this stage of the workshops. This might be that I am making the mistake of comparing myself to the others in the group, rather than looking at my own journey and my own style. But I think this is more about execution than visualization.
Strangely I am unworried about this. I know that the images will follow, perhaps not this trip but in the future. My aim for this week was to experiment with a different type of visual storytelling. To slow down, meander more and see more. I was keen to explore shape, form, shadows, reflections as sources for images.
Whilst it is of course frustrating to have conceived an image in my head – a priest with his cassock blowing in the wind, glancing up at a statue of St Mary in a town square, or the two old ladies on the bench laughing with pleasure at an illicit ice cream or a joke about former friends, perhaps in front of a terracotta wall or a bright modern shop, helping to show the contrast of age and time – and yet not to have captured it, I am content that I am beginning to visualize and to see more.
I have move passed the concern about what setting I am using or what I am metering , to concentrate on what I see and what story I want to tell or why I want to take the picture at all. Or at least in my mind I have.
Others of course captured these images. But they deserved to. They had waited patiently or they had worked the situation, returning at different times of day knowing in their mind the sketch they had see just needed the right combination of factors and actors to lift the image.
Of course luck sometimes joins in and plays our game with us, but what I have realized I this trip is that everywhere we look there are opportunities. Change the angle, change the perspective, perhaps change the lens or the time of day, but everything has the potential when crafted right to be interesting and sometimes compelling.
So although at the end of our time here in Liguria I may not have the 10 images or so that others will walk away with, I am really happy. I am genuinely pleased with what I am achieving in terms of observation. I have a much keener eye now for shadow, reflections, patterns and abstracts, I know now how much more I need to work an image and this week, as I renewed my desire to practice more and to experiment more, but this time I will do so with more purpose, more options and more confidence,
My journey is I realize is more about exploration and satisfaction – the exploration of new places, new ways of using light or shadow or the exploration of a concept or a theme. The satisfaction comes from trying. That is not the same as succeeding, but for me there is real satisfaction in knowing that I am learning, exploring and trying. Sometimes it will work, sometimes it won’t. I think perhaps my biggest learning in this week has been about letting go – personally and creatively. If it doesn’t work on this trip, then that is okay too.
The journey today to Venice for the few of us going on there with David and Jeffrey is a useful reprieve from the self-imposed pressure of feeling I have to make a shot or an image today. I am fortunate that I will sit with David on the train to Venice and the few days ahead.
But if all I come away with is happy memories then I will be content with that too. This week we have been so fortunate to have been with such a great group. To them – to Claudio, Anna, Stuart, Natalie, Eli, Jeff, Kerry and of course to David and Jeffrey – my thanks for your patience, your advice, your conversation, your humour, your inspiration and your tolerance. I already have a mass of memories – as well as a mass of memory cards that are full! – and I can’t wait for the next few days in Venice to share this journey further.
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