Erasmus Photography Competition 2007

Erasmus Travels 2006-2007

The following photos were my submission to the Erasmus photography Competition. They completed the first round assessment and were then forwarded to the second but not subsequently shortlisted for the final competition.

Introduction

Travel is the pursuit of unknown and unanswered riddles, a spiritual treasure-hunt. However, ultimately the act of travel results only in silent reflection; it never answers our questions, it can only further compel and confound the profundity of our original quest. The end riches we gain therefore are not resolutions but a deepened sense of mystery. To confront the tangible form is to bear witness only, witness to a living body of a reality, formerly known only through the experience of the abstract shadows of words dancing on a page, cast by the form itself. But the form contradicts the shadow as well as confirms it. In turn our stay is an imposed grammar upon a continuous narration of another's story, upon the cacophonic melody of existence. We punctuate it with the comma of a bakery where we bought bread and with the step where we waited for beginnings and ends. We have borrowed another reality and been given visions of the world under a new light.

All around us exists what can be perceived as the future's archaeology; our frail monuments and edifices that will be displaced and likewise the theatre of history will be swept clean for new narrations of human passions upon a newly composed set. Within the strata of the earth’s archives lie diamonds as fragile as butterflies; they are the multifaceted prisms of human realities, kernels we hope to reanimate in order to understand the buried self that completes the portrait of human existence in the round. This experience led me to want to uncover those stories and to reveal how all reality is fated to become a dream.

Train in Transit

 

Taken on the Euro star train between London and Paris. The voyage over land and the voyage through the pages of a book, here juxtaposed in the window, are analogous journeys reflecting individual progression.

New Encounters 

A Traveller gazes upon the sight of an inverted glass Pyramid as it seems to balance upon the tip of a smaller one, Louvre, Paris. The sign in the background reads "Virgin," suggesting that travelling too is a way to encounter never before encountered experiences, a new personal first.

 Rags and Riches.

 

The beautiful edifices of the rue di Lille overshadow and contrast starkly with the poverty hidden below bridge, along the bank of the Seine, Paris.

Winter Flame

The Student Olimpiade Invernale in Turin. The Flame of the competition is being carried through the main square pursued by the Media.

Generation Gap

The remains of the old Roman Theatre lie in the shadow of the Palace on Via XX Settembre that now houses Turin’s Museum of Antiquities.

After Hours.

 

"The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step." Travel makes us aware of the passage of time and every life in itself seems to be the expression of a personal epic voyage.

Monumental Memories.

The city is a novel of memories and each of its stones tells a story, lamenting its losses and celebrating its victories.

Angel at the Door.

Shadows play on the walls of an old building in Turin. Here they mysteriously seem to take on the form of a wandering angel.