chapter 13: Views Between

Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world
Gustave Flaubert

From suites in Singapore and Bratislava to temporary workers camps in the desert. In high rise offices in Asia and Europe, converted garages, airports, railway stations, bush tracks, autobahns, from cities to remote communities

If the work was in offices, clinics, courts and communities, the beauty was often found in the spaces in between.

I saw the world from:

Suites in Singapore and Bratislava,

Temporary workers’ camps in the desert,

High-rise offices in Asia and Europe,

Converted garages,

Airports, railway stations, bush tracks and autobahns,

Big cities and tiny remote communities.

The photos I took weren’t usually of the meetings, the training rooms or the case files. They were of the road between towns, the river bend outside a community, the view from a hotel window, or the stretch of sky over a desert airstrip.

The contrast was always there: the tranquil landscape in front of you, and the far less tranquil realities just behind your shoulder. I learned, over time, that I didn’t need more photos of the hard stuff. I already knew what I’d find if I turned around.

What I wanted to remember were the glimpses of calm and space that sat alongside the chaos: the sunset between meetings, the quiet street before a busy day, the fog over a European river seen through a train window at dawn.

Those are the images that, when I look back now, anchor the story more than the official milestones do.