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Genesis Revisited II - Secrets of the images - November 12

In late 2008 Jo and I noticed various photos of me and images in a book about Genesis in Italy that were particularly special. The name Vicedomini was attached to these pictures and we hoped to connect with the person who had taken them. When we had the opportunity to connect with Maurizio and Angéla Vicedomini a few months later in Lugano we realised that these two people had been taking those amazing shots. We all became good friends. They took some fabulous pictures for our wedding, and more incredible photos, some of which we used in both the booklet of Beyond the Shrouded Horizon and Squackett - A Life Within a Day. Finally Genesis Revisited II gave them an opportunity to reveal the full magic of their extraordinary work. They've kindly agreed to speak about their art photos for this album in their own words, so here below they reveal some of the stories behind the images...

 

Website: www.iconphoto.ch

 

COVER / SUPPER'S READY / APOCALYPSE IN 9/8

One morning in February, around 9:30, we entered the Piazza S. Marco (Venice) from the west with the gaps suggestive of side porches and the bell tower right in front of us. Looking down we realized that there was no living soul around us. Not a single person in the streets or in the arcades. This initial moment persisted for almost ten long minutes after which we heard the first hurried steps moving behind our shoulders breaking the surreal silence. We took some photos that express only part of the feelings of those first minutes. A long pool of water on the pavement of the square gave the impression that there had been a flood and that with the water had dispersed the people away from the square. With this poignant thought and encouragement from Steve and Jo to search for something "dramatic and powerful" we developed the idea to create a scene that would justify the empty square.

The following weekend we left for Sylt in search of a wave that could fit in the context of Piazza S. Marco and play as experienced by our mind.

 

THE CHAMBER OF 32 DOORS

Our first idea was to have 30-35 persons moving in a place with many doors.

The first challenge was to find a location with a certain number of doors and a staircase. Once we found the place, an abandoned hotel, we decided to use only one person to represent the people mentioned in the lyrics of the song, emphasizing the anonymity of the crowd with a white mask.

 

HORIZONS

We felt that this wonderful instrumental had to be represented by a very ethereal picture.

By travelling by plane to London looking out of the window we saw what we wanted.

 

THE LAMIA

Here we are back to the abandoned hotel of The Chamber of 32 Doors, which offered a superb location for this shot.

As in all the pictures for this project we used only amateur models which were acting in front of the camera for the first time in their lives, making the posing a real challenge for us but giving to the pictures a special spontaneity and freshness.

To create the mystical atmosphere we used a smoke machine and a well-studied lighting set.

 

DANCING WITH THE MOONLIT KNIGHT

This was the last shot we took for this album.

Steve and Jo came up with this idea only a few days before the deadline for the delivery of the artwork material. There was no more time to go diving and take an underwater shot. Fortunately our friend Claudio Gazzaroli give us the possibility to choose from a large variety of his underwater pictures. It was immediately clear for us that the photo with the ice floe was just perfect to drawn the tower bridge.

 

THE MUSICAL BOX

This picture was in our mind long before we had all the accessories, the right model and the right location.

After some time of investigations we had all the ingredients for this picture.

We have placed a light in the musical box to illuminate the face of Cynthia. We asked our model to have a surprised and a little bit frightened expression while looking into the box as in our perception the light symbolized the spirit, the soul of little Henry.

 

CAN-UTILITY AND THE COASTLINERS

With this picture we started our work for the Genesis Revisited II project.

We began working on the song Can Utility and the Coastliners when we were holidaying in Sylt and where it seemed that the special atmosphere of the island could inspire us to this beautiful song. We brought with us our portable photo-studio equipment, as well as some accessories that we felt could be part of the scene we had in mind. The strong winds which prevailed during our stay on the island prevented us from fully developing our ideas to the fullest. Even the throne which we had brought for the purpose ended up to many times in the water to be properly used in the scene.

We made two photo sessions, one in the late afternoon, with an almost oppressive dark light, the other at dawn the next morning with the help of an artificial light shining on the basic elements of the photo's set: an ancient crown and a very old book.

 

PLEASE DON'T TOUCH

Steve and Jo gave us the following input for this photo:

"For Please Don't Touch I was thinking of pedestrians crashing into each other in a very busy urban area during rush hour. A mass of seething humanity all crowded together on the move. So much purpose but yet a sense also of things being out of control. I was also thinking of the swirls in Van Gogh's paintings becoming more prominent the crazier he became."

Our idea was to avoid big cities and rather present this vision in a somewhat different atmosphere.

The choice of a the location was Venice, a city bustling with tourists which could represent the chaos indicated by Steve, perhaps with a touch of magical painting by Van Gogh.

We wandered for a few hours between the canals of Venice trying some shots but failed to achieve anything interesting. At the end of the day we realized that the right choice was to be part of the crowd and not only to be merely spectators.

With our cameras suspended around our necks we immersed ourselves in the flow of tourists and, setting it on a relatively long exposure time, we got the effect described by Steve with swirls of colors brushed in during a sunset over the lagoon.

 

BLOOD ON THE ROOFTOPS

While looking for a location for The Musical Box, we discovered this place with those extraordinary windows. The red part of the windows has suggested us right away the perfect location for Blood on the Rooftops.

We bought all old televisions we could find, we borrowed a grandfather clock (it's five past nine) from a friend and we prepared the setup of the living room.

Our model walked in to the scene and sat down on the armchair and was immediately part of the story, giving us the possibility to finalize the photo in a surprising short time.

Each television screen tells part of the story of the lyrics.

 

THE RETURN OF THE GIANT HOGWEED

The idea for this picture comes from a simple reflection: how does it feel for a human to be suffocated by a giant plant? We found the answer in a churchyard.

 

ENTANGLED

While we were in London Jo showed us a picture she took from a place above the city of London. For Steve and Jo this was exactly representing the spirit of the song.

The day after we went to the same place and we had the same feeling, however we wanted to give to the photo a tridimensional feeling of flying.

This was done during the shot with the camera lens.

 

ELEVENTH EARL OF MAR

This picture could be made thanks to a combination of coincidences.

We came to know about a medieval festival not far away from our home. We contacted the organizer of the event and the participants agreed to act in front of our camera.

 

RIPPLES

We made this picture for our photo book Genesis In Our Flight of Fancy. We couldn't imagine another photographic interpretation of this song. So we have proposed to Steve and Jo to use the same picture even so this one is a color version and with a different crop.

 

UNQUIET SLUMBER FOR THE SLEEPERS...
...IN THAT QUIET EARTH

"The two titles were taken from lines at the end of the book Wuthering Heights (which also inspired the album title). It was written in Victorian times about doomed love in a hostile windswept and wild place.

There was a lovely old film made of the story starring Lawrence Olivier and Merle Oberon.

In the story, when Cathy dies her ghost haunts Heathcliff until he finally dies on the cold, windswept and often snowy rocky landscape and they join each other there as two ghosts together. That's why we thought the rocky and snowy mountains would be great for a photo linked to this atmosphere."

This suggestion from Steve and Jo reached us at the end of June. It was quiet difficult to imagine this atmosphere during the summertime.

We thought about the San Gotthard pass being a solution for this problem. So we left home very early in the morning in order to be on the top of the pass by dawn. As expected there were low clouds floating among the rocks and the atmosphere was very evocative... and also very cold (5°C).

 

AFTERGLOW

We made this picture in Sicily (Saline of Trapani). The colors of the sunset and the clouds created an impressive mood.

We have taken the picture from a point of view were every line converges to the setting sun.

 

CAMINO ROYALE

For Camino Royale Steve and Jo suggested the photo that reflect the atmosphere of New Orleans, its music and the voodoo cult.

Our wish was to travel to New Orleans, but due to the lake of time we had to create a still life including the major ingredients of the idea

 

SHADOW OF THE HIEROPHANT

Once more the island of Sylt gave us the possibility to represent the story in one picture.

During a late afternoon we were walking on the beach with our cameras. In a very short time there was some clouds surrounding the sun, giving to the sky a particular glow, reflected on the wet sand.

In front of us there was a couple walking hand in hand on the beach, in between hundreds of seagulls. For us this was the perfect mood for Shadow of the Hierophant ... but ... there was something missing, the eclipse. We have inserted it in post-production after shooting the full moon a few nights later.

 

Website: www.iconphoto.ch