Artist Statement
After a life in the heart of London, among the madness of Manhattan, and the eternal bustle of Rome, I longed for the serenity of nature.
The stunning beauty of the immense, vast, and wild southern tip of South America, known as Patagonia, overwhelmed me, and prompted a passion that was to change my life.
In 1995, I moved into a tiny cabin in a national park in Patagonia without electricity, telephone or television. Here I spent two long summers and the darkest winters of my life, observing and photographing the cycles of the natural world. Gradually, I began to comprehend the perfection and harmony of nature as opposed to the incongruity of our modern world.
As the effects of industry and overpopulation progressively destroy the natural world, I set myself the goal of capturing the last vestiges of true pristine wilderness.
To take these images I had to camp out in the wild and ride, hike, drive or sail for days, weeks and sometimes months. The quest to find a secret location, a place untrodden, forgotten—too remote to even have a name—became a goal in itself and an essential part of the creative process.
I never know exactly what I may find, but often enough, it is awe-inspiring beauty that greets me at the end of an arduous journey. Only then do I feel the power—the urge—the need—to grab a camera and take a picture.
Unlike many contemporary artists I do not artificially intervene in my imagery, beyond ‘darkroom’ work. What you see is a true reproduction of what my camera captured. There is no photoshop—just the grandiosity of nature itself.
The alienation of man from nature is the leitmotif in all of my work. My images show the world as it must have been over millions of years, a world in which humans have no place. It is my quest to save—albeit only in images—what in my opinion, will soon be lost forever.
