Thinking back at those years from 2017 through 2020 when we lived in Texas, I basically see these ‘outstanding meaningful moments’:
- The first months: July to October 2017
- Ruggero and Marta settling in. Our new home, town, city, State, and Country
- COVID in Texas
- Going back to Europe
I’ll develop Iconic USA in four Chapters, following the structure above. All four chapters carry with them iconic moments, worth to be lived and seeing!
It’s worth saying that nothing in this project ‘Iconic USA’ is in any way related to my work or to Marta’s – we’ll keep the two worlds, the personal and the professional world, totally separated.
Out of the many photographs taken in these 3 years, the blog version of Iconic USA will have ‘some’ pictures and very few comments. Just like for our experience in Saudi Arabia, my plan is to print a photo-book with many more photos and more in-depth comments – everything is ready and will start at the completion of this project!
The first months in the US were a mix of adventure and surprises, new people, friends, and places. All were very different from anything we had ever imagined before.
I was the first to go to Houston while Marta stayed in Italy. I landed in July 2017 and lived for the first three months in a hotel in Clear Lake.
Houston in July has a different light than I’ve seen elsewhere: it’s very bright and warm. It’s not like Saudi: colors get through to you much more cleanly, there’s less haze and the air feels lighter. The colors are more vivid and the light is just different from any other place visited before. This aspect is important for a photographer.
During the very first days, I used to take short runs around the hotel either in the evening, after work, or during the weekends: everything was new and captured my attention. My Fuji X-T1 was with me: you can’t beat it when it comes to portability and when the goal is capturing daily emotions.
This one above is the first of the pictures saved in my Lightroom catalog. I took it during a walk outside the hotel, with the green and the blue symbolically recalling the field and the sky of Clear Lake, Houston.
If you want to shoot street, going incognito with an X-T1 is a guarantee of great candid shots. A special wig and a studied expression were part of my secret technique to keep the profile low… You can do a good job even with just your hair and a normal face…
The pictures above were all taken in a bar in Clear Lake. Of that bar, I remember nothing except the beautiful light that was there. I felt compelled to shoot, and this is basically the only clear and strong memory that is left to me of that bar: don’t ask me what we had for a drink or if the dinner was great or not!
I returned to Italy in the mid of August for a couple of weeks but then Hurricane Harvey pounded Houston so severely that I could not return until around mid-September.
Back to Houston and it was time to leave the hotel and get into our new home! Located in a lovely compound, literally in the heart of the Armand Bayou, and when I say ‘literally’ I really mean it: our home was less than 100 foot from the water.
The Bayou, a natural ecosystem completely unknown to us before, carries with it some perks, namely the contact with the wild nature, and some cons, namely the contact with the WILD nature.
How gators, snakes, armadillos and many other wild beasts impacted our lives, our first approach to the local community, and a lot more is at the heart of Chapter 1 Part 2 – I will do my best to write it in a couple of weeks from now, and you don’t want to miss it!
Ruggero Pellegrin 
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