Home.
Can we ever really know what draws us back?
The People, familiar and comforting?
The Places, filled with echoes of lives lived close to the soil?
The Light, inspiring and revealing?
They’re a grandmother’s words, but they ring true: “Home never looks better than after you’ve been away.” But Home also can be a journey in itself. It takes time to see the richness and wholeness of what lies at hand. A rusting bucket holds an ocean. Echoes of echoes, the poet says.
So, the photographer can find his or her vision in the landscapes of home, in the textures of lives lived in the comfortable old shoe of familiar things. As photojournalist Carl Mydans once said, “a photographer needs a heart, an eye, a mind, and a magic box.”
And a little light.