Underneath, Blue
Notes from Como and Maggiore
The mountains here go straight down. There’s no gradual shelving, no shallows to wade into – the slopes that rise three thousand feet above the surface also drop a thousand below it, glacial scoops filled with water so cold it stays cold all summer. That depth has a color. The color is blue.
In the Italian Lakes, it isn’t simply the color of water or sky. It comes from depth, from mountains casting long shadows across the surface, from haze softening the far shore into atmosphere. The lakes gather blue and hold it. Morning blue. Midnight blue. The hard blue of noon and the silvery blue that appears just before darkness.
You notice it most in the things that aren’t blue. Orange trumpet flowers leaning over a stone balustrade. The mahogany hull of a Riva slipping past. Pink mandevilla in a planter, yellow daisies in an urn. Italian gardens have always known this – give the eye a hot point and the cold expanse behind it gets colder.
These lakes have been a source of inspiration and relaxation for at least 2,000 years. The poets Virgil, Goethe and Longfellow all wrote of their beauty and they’ve been followed by countless artists and photographers.
Photographing here becomes less about spectacle and more about variations. Watching how blue changes from hour to hour. How distance alters it. How weather deepens or softens it. The same water can feel Mediterranean one moment and almost Nordic the next. Still, a world held together by color.
Then it goes dark. The blue gets darker. Out past the moorings a single wooden boat catches an interior light. The towns across the water begin to look like a strand of low beads. The blue keeps being blue even when there’s nothing left to see it by. There’s a name for that hour, but the name doesn’t quite hold what it is. The blue isn’t an effect of the light. The blue is what’s left when the light goes.
During this dark and difficult time, we all need to do what we can to keep our spirits up. I post my photographs and thoughts here to show that there is still beauty in the world and to promote the idea that there is grace, positivity and inclusivity in the everyday.
Throughout history, goodness most always wins, and the arts can lead the way in reflecting the good all around us. There is still light in the world.
It's true that when something contrasts with the blue, it just deepens in color. I noticed the same thing in Alaska when I visited the Mendenhall glacier. It seems the water is deeper, thicker with blue. Thank you for that reminder. As always, a pleasure to read your stories and view your lovely images.
Thank you for this mornings most excellent submission, Jeff, Your words were especially good today,and very descriptive. of the photos which were all good and were very illustrative of the words/ mood, I especially liked the 4th one with the flowers, the texture of the end post, LHS, and the soft descriptive lite on the RHS collumn.
.The last photo was very special with the Riva fast boat, the darkening of the blue H2O, and twinkling ltes of Humanity occupied areas in th far distance,and the life it describes,