Sometimes The Middle is really The End

In the late spring of 1996, while driving around the French countryside in Provence searching for elusive photographs, I would often drive up to some manner house and introduce myself and ask for permission to photograph on the grounds.

If I was lucky, I would be invited into the home or chateau by the owners and be offered a wonderful lunch of cheese, ham, bread, olives, and wine. Often I would return with bottles of wine given to me by the chateau owner from his vineyards.

One afternoon, while traveling to the outer perimeters of my adventures, I saw a little unmarked gravel road. In my usual fashion there was something about it that intrigued me and off I went down this long private road until at the very end I reached these enormous gates, which fortuitously were opened, and I drove through to the entrance to a large and forbidding manor house.

Immediately I was struck by the eccentricity of the surroundings. There were many large pure white peacocks prancing through the courtyard, and on occasion I would see in the distance a servant in a long white robe delicately wafting from one building to the next. Their robes would flow with the breeze, and they too like the peacocks seemed ready for flight. It was perfectly choreographed.

I could see many formal walled-in gardens manicured and clipped to perfection. It was exotic and unknown with one outdoor room leading to another.

I knocked on the front door, was met by a Moroccan servant in his white attire and ushered into a room where I was told to wait.

Finally a man enters the room and in my halting and embarrassingly bad French try to describe that I was an American photographer who would love to photograph the gardens.

Before I could get passed the first sentence the man immediately halted me and declared “I’m Kenyon Kramer and I’m from Texas. You can speak English.” What a relief.

So I tried again, introduced myself, showed him some of my work, and in English told him I would love to photograph the grounds of the estate.

Again, I was quickly interrupted and told that his partner owned the property, and under no circumstances would he allow anyone to photograph it. I pleaded, offered photographs, and tried almost everything, but despite all my endeavors I failed to make any headway and was abruptly bid goodbye.

I left and just as I was finally approaching the main road I heard a horn honking behind me. I stopped and pulled over and Kenyon, the man I had just met came over to me and smiled.

His first question was “Do I have sister named Marianne?” To which I immediately replied that I do. He said I know all about you through your sister whom I know through a mutual friends. I’ve been wanting to meet you for some time and I just realized who you were. I couldn’t believe it. Of all the years I’ve travelled I’ve never met anyone who knew anyone I knew and here, when I get rejected, the gods above decide to let me in. But maybe they let me in for a reason I didn’t know at the time.

He said come back in a week and I will introduce you to my partner and see if we can change his mind.

I went back in a week and received permission to photograph throughout the property but other than enjoying the mystery of the experience to my surprise no great photographs emerged. The location was wonderful but something was missing.

Life in Provence was wonderful that Spring. The smell of lavender, the delicate green of the shudders, the cheese, the wine, and the weather but from some good things I learned a few lessons well.

I realized I had reached the limit and perhaps even the end of my earlier life. No matter how much I tried to recreate it it just wasn’t there. I looked and looked but something was lost. Even though I thought I did, I no longer desired to travel alone searching for pictures. I had come to love large production and felt empty without it. Over time I am sure I could go back but at that point I didn’t want to. I now loved not to find but to make my own pictures. I needed the right location but once there I wanted my crew to help refine and co-produce something more, something with a figure, and maybe a few small props. No longer was the landscape enough. I had changed. The landscape now seemed empty to me without a figure. It needed a person, large or small, making it’s way through the maze we call life.