The Space Beyond

On thresholds, reflections, and what a photograph can't reach

Photographers are less creators than editors. Every time we raise a camera to our eye, we choose one small slice from the nearly infinite possibilities the world presents.

We think of photography as stopping time, which it often does, but I think it is just as much about pausing at thresholds. The camera stands outside almost everything it photographs. It records the surface of a place while quietly suggesting that something continues beyond the edge of the frame.

But not every frame behaves the same way. For me, doors and windows raise questions. A door invites us to enter; a window asks us to look through. Both promise another space, another room, another set of experiences continuing beyond what we see.

Whether it’s a weathered green door in a crumbling wall, a window clouded by decades of dust, or an opening painted shut, I’m interested in the architecture itself – but even more in the possibility it implies. The mystery isn’t what we see. It’s what we can’t.

Can mirrors work the same way?

Unlike doors or windows, mirrors refuse to take us elsewhere. They send us back into the room we already occupy. Yet they somehow make that room feel larger and less certain. A mirror doesn’t open onto another world. Rather, it creates another version of the one we’re in.

The reflection is perfectly believable and completely unreachable. It exists only because of where we’re standing. Take one step sideways and it disappears forever – an escape that never leaves the picture.

A doorway leads inward. A window leads across. A mirror folds the frame back on itself, introducing a quiet uncertainty; am I looking at the room, or at its brief, polished memory?

Photography works much the same way. Every photograph is both evidence and illusion. It feels like access while remaining permanently out of reach.

These photographs were all made in Sicily, although they could almost have been made anywhere. Place matters, of course. The worn plaster, oxidized paint, fading mirrors, and centuries of accumulated repair belong to this island.

But what drew me wasn’t Sicily itself.

It was the feeling that every surface contained another way through – sometimes into another space, sometimes simply into another way of seeing.

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I post my photographs and thoughts here to show that there is still beauty in the world and to promote the idea that there is grace, positivity and inclusivity in the everyday.

Throughout history, goodness most always wins, and the arts can lead the way in reflecting the good all around us. There is still light in the world.

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