October 2022
Old Trees in Liebana Valley · Cantabria, Spain. 2017
Silver gelatin print, 10¼ x 10¼ in · Limited edition to 30 signed and numbered prints.
Much like a writer facing a blank page, a photographer sometimes confronts a landscape that is also blank. Too often, the kilometers traveled and the accumulated fatigue along the way become fruitless under a dull and simple light, where the eye cannot frame anything interesting through the viewfinder. At that moment, all the learned technique and our photographic vision are at the mercy of the whims of the weather.
But on a few occasions, after hours of wandering back and forth or sitting on a rock, suddenly, the gaze fixates on something new and previously hidden. Now the scene fills the frame, we focus, measure, and shoot. Perhaps it was just luck, and the light changed as it pierced through the clouds, playing with the bark of those trees. Maybe patience allowed the gaze to gain experience. Perhaps it was a bit of both.
Patience must be kept sharp, as if it were another tool in the kit, as important as the camera itself.
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