foto.art.life: Diary of an Italophile: Italy January 2012

Within the first three days back from Italy, I attended class, spent time with my daughter, with friends, and had gone back to work. It was so incredibly busy, I felt literally FLUNG into my life--which was good for my post-traveling blues.

Today, twelve days back in the States, I want to say that I don't feel back in the swing of things and in my head, I still feel a foreigner here. Everyday is a battle with myself, I fluctuate between being heartbroken and to being happy to be surrounded by so many loving people especially my daughter. I feel guilty that it seems like I am always counting down the days until I can go to Italy again or plotting my escape route back while carrying on in my "normal" life. In many ways, I sort of feel my blog has turned into an account of how much of an Italophile I am and my Italian adventures instead of my artistic endeavors. Is this what my life has become? The perpetual waiting to the next time I am in Italy?

I know this blog makes me sound like I am not grateful for the experiences that I have had, believe me, no one knows how incredibly thankful I am for this opportunity and previous trips. If I weren't awarded this grant to do research for my honor's thesis, I would have no clue when my next trip to Italy would have been so believe me, I am thankful for every gift the universe has given me.

But Italy, it's got that something that just has dug itself so deep into my soul and I cannot hide it. Every time I start to talk about Italy, my eyes light up, I get a fluttering excitement in my tummy, I smile, and sigh--I display all the signs of being madly in love. To these reactions, I often get the suggestion to move to Italy. Believe me, with every suggestion I get, I convince myself the universe is telling me to pack my bags and get on the next possible flight. I wish it were that simple. If it were, I would have never left the first time I went.

But let me turn this entry over to one of the main concerns of this blog: photography.

You know what I enjoy the most about being back? When people ask to see my photographs. Not only do I get the opportunity to relive the excitement of my trip but I have an excuse to look at my pictures without feeling guilty of looking at them when I should be doing more important things. And then, I also love people's comments.

Usually when I have shown these photographs (below), I get interesting comments. I suppose most of the time they expect to see some photographic documentation of me with a cheesy grin in front of X monument or location--instead they find themselves with photographs of empty plates, cappuccinos, random graffiti, etc…I guess to me there are enough photographs of monuments that it really takes away from the moment for me to photograph such redundancy. When I photograph my adventures, I want to document the REAL moments of my experience. I want the moment lived, the memories that come along with the moment. I want those to last forever! What use is another photograph of the Trevi Fountain? Just because I clicked the shutter or stand in front of it doesn't make it more or less special but it is the fleeting moments that escape, like a funny face of a friend, a delicious pizza, or an amazing sunset that mark an important conversation. It is those moments I want to remember because when I think about it, even photographs are only partially satisfying to reality because I still have to depend on the power of memory to truly transport me there.

In any case, here is a little taste of some of my most interesting moments (I am willing to share) in the order of occurrence with captions: