Always

Several months ago while driving out to the desert Conundra mentioned a project she was doing, a book of poetry, "The Captain's Verses" written by Pablo Neruda was her inspiration. The idea is to have photographers choose a verse and shoot for it, simply put the results would be a collaboration between model & photographer with a verse from the book as their inspiration. I had read a couple of the verses previously but not the book in it's entirety, so I purchased a copy and on my second time through, my verse became obvious.

Always

Facing you
I am not jealous

Come with a man
at your back,
come with a hundred men in your hair,
come with a thousand men between your bosom and your feet,
come like a river
filled with drowned men
that meets the furious sea,
the eternal foam, the weather.

Bring them all
where I wait for you;
we shall always be alone,
we shall always be, you and I,
alone upon the earth
to begin life.
~Pablo Neruda

Stepping Stone

We left a bit early, a little too early for the sun and had to wait a bit for it to get lower in the sky, we spent some of the time shooting in the shade we found among the rocks. During the drive out we had discussed the verse which perhaps put it in the back of my mind, but to be honest I really didn't think about it, I knew something from the day would fit because this is how I view life and my work.

See The Way

I can't know what Pablo was feeling when he wrote "Always", though I see in my images my interpretation of his verse, I tagged my first book 'two people and a camera' for that reason. Whatever baggage we carry around, drama we've been subjected to or previous relationships we've had, whatever man or woman have come before us, when I am out in the desert it no longer has a meaning, it no longer matters because out in the desert we are alone, just us, and we are photographing life.

Handful Of The Earth

"While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see." ~Dorothea Lange