Back in 2019, I wandered through the hidden fields and remote villages of Melena del Sur, carrying a Nikon D300s and a trusted 80-200 lens. I wasn’t chasing pretty landscapes, I was searching for stories carved into the skin of the land, for lives rooted in the soil, for silence thick with meaning.
What I found was a people who were resisting. Not with banners or words, but with oxen, with calloused hands, with old tools and unwavering presence. I didn’t direct a thing. I listened, I watched, and I pressed the shutter only when the moment allowed me in. The choice for black and white wasn’t aesthetic; it was inevitable. Only in monochrome could I truly reveal the soul beneath the surface.
Now, looking back at these images, I feel not just nostalgia, but worry. I fear returning and finding that the resistance I once saw has faded, replaced not by defeat, but by something worse: resignation. Because abandonment doesn’t always scream… sometimes, it just settles in quietly.
This series is a tribute to what we once held onto, and a quiet mourning for what may already be slipping away.
Thank you for walking this visual path with me, into a past that still speaks, if you dare to listen.
