Saudade, 2014

“Saudade” is the organizing theme for this work.  It is a unique Portuguese word that has no immediate translation in English. A taxi driver introduced me to this concept as I made the 4-hour journey between Jericoacoara and São Luís in northeast Brazil. Roughly stated, it refers to a longing, a melancholy, a desire for what was or what could be – a desire to be someplace anywhere but the present.

“The famous Saudade of the Portuguese is a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist, for something other than the present, a turning towards the past or towards the future; not an active discontent or poignant sadness but an indolent dreaming of wistfulness. ~ In Portugal of 1912, A. F. G. Bel

My photography is discovery-driven and, like many photographers, I have an intense curiosity about the world around me. In this instance, I am photographing the landscape as a sort of dream state, where we float above and wander through its geology with no prescribed destination.

I see each image as a specific essay on place, a survey of terrestrial phenomenon and the traces we as humans leave behind.  From the piles of sand infused with sacred significance to the ancient hillsides meticulously terraced from valley to peak, they seem to simply ask, “How do you, as human beings, experience the earth?”