The Photographer (Ignazio Boschetto Fanfiction)

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

         

          I quickly discovered that Gianluca, Piero, and Ignazio were very active, and they were constantly going biking, swimming, hiking, and leaving for trips to the beach. They always invited me along, but I declined every time and spent much of the last week in Los Angeles hiding from them in the condo. I spent most of the time I wasn’t learning from Valerie researching the best photo spots, and I escaped multiple times to go for blissful romps throughout the city with my camera. I traveled by taxi around the enormous landscape, then explored on foot climbing mountains and hills and trees to get the best shots, and I slipped out at five in the morning and in the evening to get brilliant sunrise and sunset pictures. These were the times I had the most fun during the week, fulfilling my photographic desires and ambitions as I admired the successfully captured scenes. I became reunited with my familiar excursions as I dashed around in an exhilarated rush hunting for the best views.

          Though I should have been excited for the start of the Il Volo tour, I was instead filled with a sense of dread. Coming back from my frenzied explorations of Los Angeles to the condo filled with Valerie’s photos of Il Volo dimmed my delight and reminded me that I was now expected to be a portrait artist instead of one thriving on landscapes.

*****

          Finally, the day we were to leave arrived. We all packed up our suitcases and I packed my camera equipment, and the boys, Michele, Barbara, and I loaded our things into cabs. It was early in the morning, before the sun had yet risen, and I said a fond good-bye to Valerie in the morning darkness and issued a silent one to Los Angeles.

          I was hoping to sit next to Michele or Barbara on the plane, but was disappointed when Ignazio sat beside me instead, with Piero beside him. Piero immediately put in his headphones and went to sleep, but Ignazio didn’t follow suit.

          “Hi, Tamzin,” he said, turning to me and smiling sweetly after we had taken to the air.

          I glanced up from my National Geographic magazine and then looked back down.

          “Aren’t you going to tell me hello?” he teased, his eyes shining playfully.

          I looked up and raised an eyebrow, then turned my attention back to the magazine.

          “Hi Ignazio,” I said, emphasizing a “g” sound and mispronouncing it on purpose. He smiled.

          “It’s Ignazio. No “g” sound.”

          “Yeah, okay,” I said, not looking up. I reached into my bag and pulled out the tour schedule Michele had given me. We were starting with Latin America, which I had never been to and was ecstatic to view the landscapes. The first place we were headed to was Mexico- to Guadalajara, Puebla, and then Mexico City. After that we would head to a few places in Venezuela, and then we would rapidly change countries. We would go to Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Chile, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, someplace called Curitiba, and then Porto Alegre and Sao Paolo. The schedule was dizzying, and all of these places were to be visited before the end of October.

          I returned the schedule to my bag and continued studying the magazine, observing the gorgeous landscapes contained in the pages. I observed the vast ranges of brilliant color in the skies and throughout the land, and admired the features of the earth.

          As I turned the pages, I stared longingly at them as I remembered that I was supposed to be a portrait photographer now. Though I could no longer dedicate all of my time to landscapes, I was determined to slip away from the boys and capture scenes of the land at every place we stopped. I would not let them take away my dream.