Behind the Photo: A new series writing about the favorite images I have made
#1 "Mid-sentence" at Capri Club in L.A. with Francesco Allegro July 2022
So this is an experiment— in writing about photography, in honing my storytelling skills, in sharing my memories, and honestly in attempting to not lose my English vocabulary as I bounce from one broken language to the next for the foreseeable future.
Merci grazie gracias thanks for reading! More of these soon (I don’t want to over-commit by saying they’ll drop every Friday but maybe they will drop every Friday?)
Behind the Photo #1:
“Mid-sentence” —at Capri Club in L.A., with Francesco Allegro, July 2022.
Midway through the frittatine di pasta, after having split a pepper crema-doused arancino, and about to dig into the pancetta-wrapped dates, I raised my camera and snapped this photo. I love that the subject is the messy plate that doesn’t tell the viewer what it had contained but that it was eaten in a spur. The bowl of savory dates in the corner is calling your name, but it’s not the main point. And the chef, only visible enough to show you he’s trying to tell you something, is an element to make the image complete (and not the main focal point). This photo is a document of memory, more than it is a photo to sell you the dish or the experience that might come with eating here.
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This was taken in the kitchen at Capri Club in LA last summer on a weekday afternoon as chef Francesco Allegro was preparing ingredients for the weekend services. It was the second week they were open, and 10 days in the aperitivo-inspired bar was already a hit. People were calling to make reservations and the owner had to keep reminding people: this is a bar, just come through!
But I wasn’t there to talk about the hype. Honestly, I just wanted to hear someone say they missed Apullia, too. It was a few months after I had come back from a winter abroad and a few months before I was supposed to leave again. I felt disconnected from LA and my closest friends. As my mind kept wandering back to the other side of the Atlantic, Capri Club called my name (spiritually).
As Francesco prepped and fried, we chatted and reminisced. The ensuing conversations between that afternoon and my next visit to the Capri Club terrace turned into this profile piece I wrote about the chef for my own short-lived project. I spent a week working on the article, and by the end of it, I had forgotten why I had wanted to write it in the first place. I remembered what it felt like to connect again, and writing a profile felt like turning that connection into a tangible piece of art ( as tangible as a digital piece of written work gets!)
How could I do this for a living, I thought? (It’s where my mind goes every time I do something that makes me feel alive…for better or for worse?)
How can I spend my time with people, learning about them, uncovering their stories, then sharing them with the world?
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ps: color or black and white?