In the past when my Rosemary and I traveled abroad we always had our granddaughter Rebecca in tow. This time around she refused to budge from her home in Burnaby. Alas! How would I be able to 

take photographs in Venice or in Florence that would be different from the norm?

I found a beautiful young Venetian woman with blue hair who was going to pose for me. At the last moment she cancelled and I was in Venice with an efficient portable studio light and no subject to photograph. This problem did not last long as I photographed my friend, period cellist Claudio Ronco and his wife Emanuela Vozza with that light by a canal right outside their home. In a soon-to-be blog I will write about them.

In Florence chance brought us in contact with a handsome rickshaw (electrically assisted) driver. A few days later, and after a haircut and with his sunglasses he greeted us and I did not recognize him. 

I knew that this was an opportunity that I had to take advantage of. Carlo Eugenio Raffaelli (born in Edinburgh, Scotland) was a too good of a subject to ignore. I asked him about his plans and it seems he is studying to be an opera singer at the Conservatorio di musica Luigi Cherubini. He is a tenor. He was willing to pose for me to get a free headshot!

He came to our hotel room (I thought the drapery would make a good background) and he posed. The chair photos you see here involve a purposeful camera failure where I drastically underexpose my Fuji X-E3 and use a magical f-stop, 7.1. 

While I was taking his photographs I was nagged by a memory. When we got back to Vancouver and only a few hours ago I figured he had a passing resemblance to Austrian actor (The Red Shoes) Anton Walbrook.

I have a feeling that I have photographed a future excellent , soon-to-be-famous tenor!