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Matinee: 'Grazie Mille'
4 October 2025
Saturday matinees long ago let us escape from the ordinary world to the island of the Swiss Family Robinson or the mutinous decks of the Bounty. Why not, we thought, escape the usual fare here with Saturday matinees of our favorite photography films?
So we're pleased to present the 624th in our series of Saturday matinees today: Grazie Mille.
This 3:53 video is a particularly touching self portrait of photographer Chris Bucher.
Based in Indianapolis, Bucher's commercial projects ranged from architecture and construction to consumer electronics, healthcare, and life sciences industries. His gift was in translating a client's mission and vision into an image that says it all.
His work has been published in the Communication Arts Photo Annual, as well as many periodicals and Web sites. He was four-time gold medal winner in Photography at the National Art Museum of Sport and many of his images helped win local and regional Addy awards.
Bucher was also the author of Lighting Photo Workshop and Black and White Digital Photography, and technical editor for several educational photography guides.
We're using the past tense to describe his work because Bucher passed away on Sept. 23 after a brutal battle with lung cancer that had spread to his brain.
He made this video on the 30th anniversary of the day he started his photography business. "Every day was a new photographic adventure," he tells us. He thought, "Maybe at thirty years in, I can just call it a career." He started to think about living a more relaxing life in Barcelona with his wife Jen. Everyone has a plan, he says, "until they get punched in the face."
He was punched by a baseball-sized tumor in his right lung. The treatment was almost worse than the disease and, sadly, not as effective. "Another punch in the face," he says.
"I'm so proud to know that I have somehow surrounded myself with so many loving people," he switches gears from talking about medical technology to what really matters.
Treatments, drugs, side effect, insurance are not what he wanted to spend his last days talking about.
"You gotta live your life," he says. "It's too short."
He ends with the two simple words of thanks that title his self portrait. And, really, the two words we would repeat back to him. Mille grazie, Chris.