I'm still wandering into the mythical forest

[TIL #10] Taking a nourishing bath in an atmosphere of elegance, simplicity and serenity.

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Tales of Ink and Light are short stories and poems told with words (the ink) and photographs (the light). I send the Tales every two weeks. Every other week, I send Touches of Ink and Light: a photograph and the story behind it, as well as brief thoughts on photography and my creative process.

And today’s image is …

a walk in a very old forest

In my mind, Al-Andalus is a mythical realm of tolerance between the ruling Muslims and the Catholic and Jewish populations, as welll as a time of free expansion of the arts and science. In reality, there were layers of military occupation and territorial wars, inequality and discrimination, and the vision of peaceful tolerance and freedom is nothing but a simplification. And yet, in all its fairy tale simplicity, the myth persists for me.

I'm actually not interested in deconstructing it: peaceful tolerance and freedom to explore the arts and knowledge, that is good enough a vision. And that is the ideal world i step in when i enter the mosque-cathedral of Córdoba, in Andalusia (South of Spain). The name comes from the fact that a cathedral was fitted inside the great mosque after the ‘reconquista’.

I describe it as a forest because of its countless pillars that create fascinating perspectives that vanish in the low light (the camera can't resist patterns, can it - but don't even think of relying on your favourite travel tripod: the guards appear to operate a zero-tolerance policy). Inside the building, you are bathed into an atmosphere of elegance, simplicity and serenity, in a manner not much different from the feeling of a morning hike in the woods.

Independently of religion, it is a spiritual experience that demands time: i would not be able to walk through the building at a busy tourist's pace. And i’ve realised that it is the sort of place that you never really leave. I'm still there, you see, i'm still wandering in the mythical forest of the mosque-cathedral of Córdoba. That forest still nourishes me, inspires me, appeases me.

I’m curious: does your mind host mythical places? Have you visited them, did they live up to your expectations?

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the open book of the moment

In my apartment, i use a couple of small easels to keep photobooks open for a few days or occasionally a few weeks. It is a way to engage into a longer dialogue with some of the images. And at the moment, one of the open books is …

Portugal país de contrastes (‘land of contrasts’) of Portuguese photographer Artur Pastor (1922-1999). The book presents images from the 1940s to the 1970s. Pastor’s photographs are comparable to the images of Portugal made by Robert Doisneau, Sabine Weiss or Henri Cartier-Bresson. Artur Pastor presented an idealised version of the lives of the working classes: we see dignified, beautiful people absorbed in the simple tasks of their daily existence. Sometimes, when i flip the pages, i am drawn into thoughts about the distance between these images and the reality of the times (whose reality? represented by whom?), or thoughts about the distance between these images from more than 50 years ago, and the country today (again, whose reality, and represented by whom?). At other moments, i just marvel at the photographs and let them find their place in the small realm of my imagination.

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If you’re interested in analogue photography, you might enjoy this detailed account of the state of film by Michael Elliott. I don’t shoot film very often at all but i find it a very enjoyable process, in part due to the materiality of it but mostly because it slows me down. Last week, i took my Lomography Lubitel and three rolls of expired film for a stroll through the streets of central Lisbon. I’m now curious to see the results.

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For a few more days, my ebook, trees, is just a couple of clicks away from your inbox: go to https://www.pierrefdocquir.com/trees, add the ebook to the cart, then use the discount code TIL+TREES at checkout. You will receive an email with your download link.

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I wish you a peaceful and joyful year.

P.S.: If the Tales of Ink and Light work on you — that is, if they make you smile, dream or think — would you do me a huge favour and share them with the people around you who you think would love them too?