Tragicocomedia

The dictionary defines the noun Beyond as follows – “The unknown, especially in references to life after death.” Unconvinced by such flawed notions as “the soul” or any form of life after death, the beyond has always held for me a rather different meaning, more akin to its usage in the expression “the back of beyond” – a very remote or inaccessible place. The word also conjures connotations of the noun “yonder”, simply meaning, the far distance, to which place my mind often drifts.

This series of images has been a slow accumulation, gathered over several months and then some. It all feels rather late, far beyond any of the personal deadlines I tried to avoid setting. Without the chance to go on more frequent, dedicated shoots, I’m still picking up whatever I can when and wherever I can, which is dictated by the fact that we have a baby. This rather limits the subject matter, since my adventures have mostly been to regular haunts, without much variation, or else, to the internal, escapist beyond, where cameras cannot go.

Of all the things I miss most, it is vanishing into the far distant and deracinating bewilderment of too long spent in a strange and foreign place. And yet, despite the longing to go to the Beyond, to be lost somewhere and find a hotel, any hotel, at least I have a reason for living now, featured in the last shot, which is a pretty key thing if you know, as I do, that nothing lies beyond this life at all but the lives of others.