"I had been waiting fifteen years for the chance to photograph Grace Jones," relates Poretti. "And then I heard she was staying at the Four Seasons, so I sent her emails and works of mine that included her image - one of them a naked boy with her image projected onto his torso. After a week of sending emails with no reply, Nyoman was invited to dance at a party at the Four Seasons to which Grace was invited. It was the night before she was going to leave and of course, she didn't turn up, but at one in the morning this phone call comes and she is at Warisan. I said 'Grace you are always late. Now you have missed Nyoman's dance!' And she said 'Well Nyoman will have to dance again tomorrow'. And she cancelled her flight and we met up the next day. Then for the next five days, she stayed and spent the whole time being photographed by me."

Although Poretti had already begun working on digital images prior to the Grace Jones period, he admits that were it not for "his muse", his career as a digital artist would probably not have developed as far as it has today. "Grace saw some of my digital images of Antonio Blanco, and said 'I hope you're going to do some of me like that.'" Indeed Poretti did, and his series of digital images of the diva now adorn the walls of the Hard Rock Hotel.

In March 1999, Poretti left the island that had become his home for almost two decades and moved to Thailand's tourist mecca, Pattaya. Whilst he feels the time is ripe to seek fresh experiences elsewhere, Bali retains an important place in the artistic career of Pierre Poretti. He leaves behind a yet-to-be-realised dream  that of founding a photography museum  a dream that might still become a reality should Poretti manage to gather sufficient funds or find a willing sponsor. "I don't think it's an unattainable dream," says Poretti, "Bali is bursting with museums dedicated to art, and photography is a form of art. And what's more, the development of photography and its appreciation in Bali at the moment is encouraging. A lot of good young photographers are starting to emerge, and with the growing tourism industry, the demand is only getting greater." According to Poretti, the rate of development in general in Bali at the moment is a positive sign for local photographers and photography lovers. "In the seventeen years I have been here, there has been great gains made in the publicÕs understanding of photography as an art form. This can only be good news for local photographers." Not all good news, however, for according to Poretti, the new Bali is all to poor a match when compared with that of his early days on the island. "Photographically speaking, I liked the old Bali more. The old, more conservative Bali was somehow more artistically pleasing. Now, much of that is lost."

The exoticism that a foreign eye may perceive in the subjects of many of Poretti's works is to a Balinese eye something quite mundane, part of the everyday. But to foreigners and Balinese alike, Poretti succeeds in imbuing his works with a certain freshness, by viewing mundanity from a completely new perspective. As Poretti himself would say: "The beauty my eye sees is for the eyes of others."

top: Kung Fu at Candidasa, 1985

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