Orvieto was painted by Turner and sketched by him many times. It is a hugely picturesque city; it stands high on its Tufa escarpment above the road to Rome, largely unchanged since Turner’s day. To see his painting at the Tate Gallery, London click here:  View of Orvieto

after the painting by Millais (1852).

I went to Art college in Kingston, London on the banks of a shallow, weedy and unremarkable river with the evocative name of Hogsmill. We were told in History of Art that Millais painted his famous picture further up-stream. Millais’ model was Elizabeth Siddal wife of his friend and fellow Pre-Raphaelite Rossetti. She was to die later of a laudanum overdose. Millais although now rehabilitated by the public is viewed with distaste by the Tate’s director Serota who has moved Millais’ statue to the rear of the building. My version was photographed in a torrent, the Flora, near Vulci on the borders of Tuscany - it does not look anything like the Hogsmill.

The last photograph of my Mother, Patricia Somerville, just a few days before she died. Pictured with her dog Alexi on the shores of lake Bolsena looking West. She held to her Christian faith all her life, and died convinced she was going to a better place.

“I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.

My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.

He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber.”

My wife Lucia and daughter Allegra 2007

Etna peeks through the clouds after a storm. Taormina, Sicily, December 2007

fashion shot for Marella Ferrera, Spring 2008 Collection

Fashion shot for Marella Ferrera, Spring 2008 Collection

fashion shot for Marella Ferrera, Spring 2008 Collection

Montalto di Castro on the Tyrrhenian coast. This is where the Etruscans would have landed 3000 years ago.

The painting “Byblis” by the once deeply unfashionable Bouguereau is now like Lord Leighton, Alma Tadema and Gerome seen everywhere from Wikipedia to book covers and posters; these nineteenth century painters seem to have found new markets and new admirers in the electronic age. My Byblis is an electronic nymph. In the myth she is a truly tragic figure; hopelessly in love with her brother, in some versions she hangs herself, in others drowns herself in a lake of her own tears.
The model is a semi-professional singer, Fabiana Ruggeri - and she sings divinely. To hear her sing in the backstage documentary about the making of this photo

click here