The Desert: Finding Beauty in Stillness
An expanse of sand in many colours, shaped by the wind. What stillness showed me.
When I think about the places that have stayed with me, the desert in China comes back first, and it comes back as colour.
There was the incredible expanse of it. Sand to the edge of everything. And the sand was magnificent. Many colours, many shapes, and none of them fixed. The wind would blow and everything would move, the ridges would soften and sharpen, and the light would change what the colours were.
It was out of this world fantastic.
I did not do anything there, in the sense that there was nothing to do. That was the gift of it. You stand in a place that big and you stop being the main event. The desert was peaceful and beautiful, and it was humble, and it was quiet. I was quiet too.
I have been looking, since, for the link between the places I have really loved, and I think the desert is where I first noticed what the link was. It is not grandeur. It is stillness, and the humility that comes with standing somewhere beautiful that does not need you.
The photographs are in the story. They cannot hold the wind, but they hold the colour.