Bardo

Bardo is not a distant philosophical concept. It is a state, a very real feeling that all of us have experienced.

Tibetan Buddhist philosophy calls it the intermediate state between death and rebirth. I want to expand that concept to nature itself, to places that are transforming, melting, and never repeating.

It is the lake shore where water meets land. It is the salt lakes shifting hue from deep blue to rust red, evaporating over time into salt crystals. It is the boundary from a valley to a barren rocky peak, from permanent ice melting into a stream. It is the moment between seasons, when nature reveals its impermanence through sound, color, and a gentle breath.

That is impermanence, Anicca, happening right before our eyes.

Each photograph does not just record a scene, but is a breath of a moment that is both clear and fragile, impossible to capture a second time.

For many years, I lived in that very suspended state. I do not make a living from art, but I am always searching for the feeling of creating, of expressing my ideas and emotions. I worked many jobs in the business field but always kept the habit of traveling and taking pictures through life’s many ups and downs.

In 15 years of holding a camera, I have been to the Arctic, four continents, crossed deserts, and headed towards the mountains. I used to think I wanted to do something loud.

But looking back at the places and moments of making this collection, I realize it was a search for stillness. I went to the ends of the Earth, ultimately not to say who I was, but to listen.

And there, in the cold, in the absolute silence of an unpeopled land, I saw Bardo.

The landscape is no longer a backdrop; it is an internal state. How is a glacier not Bardo, when it is relinquishing thousands of years of solidity to melt, to let go back to the ocean? How is a river not Bardo, as it toils on its journey across the land?

Water, ice, stone, minerals, and leaves are the greatest masters of transition. They dissolve, they flow, then they crystallize. They do not need to understand Emptiness, Sunyata. They are Emptiness. Nature is teaching us this law every day.

Photography gives me the chance to hold that subtle in between moment, an old reality dissolving and a new one being formed.

These photographs are not trophies. They are traces of a conversation between myself and the Earth, where I learned to accept my own suspension before moving on to a new phase.

This book is an invitation.

I invite you to enter the journey through these five chapters. Let your eyes wander. Feel the texture of the rock, the cold of the ice, the brilliance of the sun. Allow yourself to get lost in this in between space.

Perhaps, in that very stillness, you will hear your own answer.

If you are curious about my story, you can see the plate list at the end of the book. But for me, photography is about capturing what is there, not imposing the ego onto things. Therefore, your own feeling for each photograph is the most accurate caption. And I would love to listen to that.