The light you cannot invent

There are kinds of light you cannot invent. We arrived in Cala d'Or at four in the afternoon, with no scouting done. I had ten minutes to read the place: the cove, the white stone, the sun already low. No time for doubt. We shot at once, in that late-day light that lies down on the rock and becomes a material.

We were past the first tries by then. Andrea knew how demanding I am at work. She knew that between two frames nothing needed saying, just a half-step back into place, letting the fabric fall. When everything moves fast, that complicity is what saves a series: nobody forces anything, everybody listens. All that was left was to press the shutter.

In the edit I kept what the place gave us: warm tones held in check, a film grain, real skin. Nothing plastic. I want you to feel, looking at these images, what hour it was, the warmth on the stone, the salt in the air.

That is what this notebook is for: remembering who people were at the moment the photograph was made. These images are also the portrait of an era, and of the woman who, first of all, learned with me to trust the light.