Patrick's musings about recent photos and images
The shot of The Three Graces was on my list of projects for over six years, but I could never get three friends together at the same time. Two beautiful Canadians, Kelsey and Renè walked into my Orvieto Gallery in mid October and looked attentively at the pictures both on the walls and in the... Continue Reading →
Location: St Patrick's Well Orvieto and Danae The Umbrian city of Orvieto and its environs in Latium and Tuscany have provided me with most of my locations for the Belle. Sometimes I realise the image on location, but occasionally this is physically impossible as was the case with Danae (2009) for which I wished to... Continue Reading →
Rusalka, a Slavic folk tale set to music by Dvořák Rusalka was suggested to me by a professional opera singer who had herself performed the role in Dvořák’s eponymous opera. A folk tale found in the slavic world akin to Andersen’s Little Mermaid and equally tragic. Rusalka is a beautiful water sprite living in a... Continue Reading →
Unusual connections sometimes can spark art photography inspiration and creativity. Baudelaire’s poem “Invitation du Voyage” and a news item about Choco Pie are behind the making of this image. Luxe, Calme et Volupté comes from a line taken from Baudelaire’s poem Invitation du Voyage, but it was a news item about a chocolate confection popular in communist North Korea that inspired this image, the coveted Choco Pie.
Poetry, music and painting, all converge in this photo-shoot, setting the mood for the final image. This picture had its origins in the sight of a freshly painted blue boat on the shores of Lake Bolsena which reminded me of a painting by Carl Moll, a mysterious, unsettling picture of a blue boat in a flooded... Continue Reading →
We set off to take a photo on the beach in mid October despite the awful weather because this was the last opportunity of the year. We had planned to take the picture back in 2007 when I met her shortly after opening my gallery in Orvieto, though something had always conspired to postpone time... Continue Reading →
A hundred years ago few anywhere suspected that the most deadly war of all time was about to break out in six months time. What occupied the minds of Britons was whether women should be awarded the vote or not, the disruptive campaign the Suffragettes were carrying out and the Liberal government's heavy handed reaction... Continue Reading →
In London over Christmas I paid a visit to the London Museum with my wife and 10 year old daughter and what did we run across quite unexpectedly? This, the actual placard that the so called Protein Man paraded up and down Oxford St, London for 25 years. His name was Stanley Green, a harmless... Continue Reading →
Sirens and mermaids in English are two different creatures but one in the same in Italian. Both belong to the menagerie of mythological females who lure men to their doom. In the case of the siren it is her voice that holds the fatal power, with the mermaid her sensuality. That said the pagan mermaids... Continue Reading →
Sometimes when I do a picture it is simply because I admire a work of art so much I just have to take it on myself as a sort of homage to the original; but I do wonder if people will say, 'so what?' Perhaps this is one of them. It has neither any particular... Continue Reading →
The Sacred Blue lily of the Nile is a plant of extraordinary beauty, with an exquisitely perfumed flower of brief duration and mild narcotic, even aphrodisiacal properties, so it is not hard to see why Nymphaea Caerulea, was sacred to the god Nefertem. The flower slowly rises to the surface over two or three days only... Continue Reading →
Some of my pictures have been shot in the studio or more often in some one's sitting room and the background added afterwards. Photo-purists can bale out at this point. On occasions I know from the outset that elements will have to be added later, Bernarda and Galèt (right) for example. Others were shot with only... Continue Reading →
Patrick Nicholas Photography 