I can’t say that I’ve traveled the entire world – far from it. But I have seen a thing or two; I’ve set foot in dozens of countries, wandering through cities, scaling mountains, trekking through dense forests, and hacking my way through humid jungles. I’ve witnessed the majesty of world-renowned nature reserves and unique natural phenomena.
Yet, despite all that variety, my heart belongs to the desert. It is the place where I feel most at home, most intrigued.
To many, the desert seems void – just endless stretches of sand and barren rock. But that is exactly what draws me in. In the desert, you feel tiny, a mere speck lost in the vastness. There are no crowds, no shops, no noise. You eat and drink only what you carry on your back. It is a place of ultimate self-reliance.
The desert acts as a “tabula rasa,” a blank canvas for the mind. Amidst the curves of the desolate mountains, I see ancient castles and impregnable fortresses. On the rolling sand dunes, I envision the silhouettes of nomad tents and resting caravans.
This sensation peaks at night, under the glow of a full moon. When the world is bathed in that eerie, silver light, the imagination takes over. It’s not a mirage, nor a hallucination; it is a creative game of the mind, where the brain instinctively reconstructs how these landscapes could have looked.
It is a difficult feeling to put into words, so I decided to express it through photography. I took several nighttime photos of the desert and used AI as a tool to “translate” my vision. I asked the AI to draw the fortresses and towers exactly where I saw them in my mind’s eye while walking through those silent canyons.
What you see in these images isn’t “real” in the literal sense. It is digitally augmented. But it is a true reflection of what I perceive when I wander through these magnificent, empty spaces. It is my way of showing you that the desert is never truly empty for those who know how to look.
