Twenty years ago I travelled extensively throughout this big continent, falling in love with the ‘sunburnt country’, the far horizons, the blue sea and the old mountains. It is a place where I learnt to dream and also a place I call home – for now.
Many photographers create their own dreams, which they share with us as we walk through the landscapes of their work. A glimpse of a native tree, a puddle or fog – images of the every-day magnified and enlarged. It is the fleeting moments we merely register in passing, which we try to shift our focus to and frame.

In the 21st Century, one must schedule in time to dream. To focus and connect the dots, to dream up stories, to fly. To capture those views that inspire, to search for the light and for moments of stillness. Too fragile is the calm, the whisper that gently hovers suspended in air.

A photographer often travels through time and spaces. The eternal quest is to capture something that is illuminated and sometimes one has to wait. Dreams cannot be hurried.
What strange spaces we sometimes inhabit. As we are searching for the breathtaking or the unexpected, we move through weightless space in which everything connects with everything. We focus, we frame, we make choices – this is how light briefly touches the film.

As we try to make sense of chaos, wild shapes and diffused patterns, the monologues in our head pound steadily, refusing to quieten.

What can we do but imagine a story and follow its path? Past the gate, up the hill and through the rain, through a different kind of dream. A sun glare plays on our romantic notion and we can only attain a vague understanding of place as we watch the days unfold.

After a restless pursuit, we are ready to look for the story between the images – and finally everything may fall into place.

“Dreams become reality,
reality becomes dreams.”

— Issey Miyake

Special Edition curated by Heidi Romano.