My photographs describe singular moments when silence and noise collide, when ancient and new grow together, when softness gives way to the edge, when light stabs through darkness. My photographs illuminate these contradictions, but offer balance. Reconciliation often happens within the frame. I strive for photographs that are beautiful, haunting, delicate, and deep.

I am standing in a grove of ancient olive trees, the sunlight is harsh, unrelenting. The air smells of salt. The earth below me has been worked for centuries, turned in and over, planted and harvested. I am not unaware of the millions of footsteps that have walked these paths before me. Yet, I am there, with my camera. The air has never been exactly as it is now, the light has never shone on the trees exactly as it does now, the combination of salt, water, olive branch, and breath has never been the same. A photograph is made, a token. In that moment, the weight of age and the lightness of the instance meld.

In the most dismal of times, we sense and are perhaps more connected to the darkness around us. At other times, the light has a more powerful pull. In both situations, however, the other is present and palpable. The darker the shadow, the more intense the highlight becomes. Photography has provided the tool I need to see both sides, to communicate both sides, and to accept and understand both sides. It has become my voice for these contradictions and the medium between myself and the world I inhabit. 

Rachel Malde, 2013