Acqua di San Giovanni
Marjorie Shaw ©2026
The 24th of June is the Feast of St. John the Baptist and aligns with the celebration of the summer equinox or Midsummer. This photograph by Marjorie Shaw was of her annual Acqua di San Giovanni, which she beautifully discusses in her substack, insidersitaly.substack.com/p/acqua-di-san-giovanni. Happy Festa di San Giovanni, happy Midsummer…happy reading.
Puck
A Midsummer’s Night Dream
Puck
I wasn’t born. I just was. One moment, nothing, the next, Robin Goodfellow. Me. An ageless spirit. Oberon and Titania too. Our existence is not biography but episodes, stories, some connected, most not. One thing is not much more important than the next. Oberon is King and lord over the realm but we other spirits are free spirits. I am with Oberon because it amuses me to amuse him.
As for this man, Will Shakespeare, humans may think he is a creative genius and for them I suppose he is but we know that the spirit of genius is really ours. I jest to Shakespeare and make him smile when I play a prank in his head, sometimes when he is lying with a lovely female creature—and this takes his mind off the fair sex and makes him limp. And then I laugh with mirth as he tries to swat me away. Alas, Will loves us for the wit we give him and the credit the humans give him for it; so, we spirits are rarely in exile from him. And, in truth, he loves his Puck best of all. When not playing with the beautiful faeries or with Oberon or causing mischief with the general population of humans, I often sit on Will’s left shoulder—and spill ink on his pages.
Robin Goodfellow
Titania’s Retinue
Noordeinde Palace Gardens 2023
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Scottish Highlands 2022
View Across the Val d’Orcia
Pienze 2025
Dance of the Trees
Staircase
Palazzo Massimo, Rome 2012
Winter Picnic
Heraion of Perachora, Greece 2006
Rose Blossom
Game of Cards
Jerez de la Frontera., Andelusia 2025
Bringing Home the Bouquet
Falling Downs 2012
Found Art
Nathan Louis and Isabel in the Kitchen
Rome 2011
Ducal Palace
Urbino 2014
Flowers in miniature
South Holland 2026
Nathan Louis and Baby Bear
Rome
It Doesn’t Always Work
London Underground 2026
Admiring Edith
Kunst Museum, The Hague 2023
In the Footsteps of EC Escher
Castrovalva 2013
Photographer, Marjorie Shaw
From time to time, I will include other photographers in the Intermezzo page.
One will find a wealth of Marjorie’s photographs on her website, Insider’s Italy (www.insidersitaly.com), as well as her Substack account, Insider Italy (https://insidersitaly.substack.com/).
Sign on path overlooking the village of Castrovalva
Angelo Iaciofano
Monteverde Vecchio
Rome 2012
The Knife Grinder
Monteverde Vecchio, Rome 2012
The Observer
Robert Doisneau Exhibition, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome 2012
Desert Landscape
Abiquiu, New Mexico New Year’s Day 2024
Jutland Seascape
Summer 1993
Upon my leaving New York City for a year-long assignment in Warsaw in the autumn of 1992, a family member gave me an old point-and-shoot film camera with a fixed lens.
Although my interest in the visual arts had been keen from early childhood and I had taken figure drawing classes and studied art history in the U.S. and in Europe, this was my first foray into photography.
The photograph presented here was taken with that camera during a trip to visit friends in Denmark. Despite the poor image quality, it remains among my favourites. Jutland Dunes is another photograph taken during this visit. You will find it already in the Portfolio.
Paris Fashion Week
2026