Paradise (A4)

Rooted in place yet elevated into the realm of the mythic, Paradise captures a view from Kaş, Turkey, looking out across the sea toward the Greek island of Megisti. Created using the cyanotype process, the image holds a timeless quality—its cool blue tones suggesting memory, sea, and sky all at once.
 
In the foreground, a curved ladder arcs over the edge of dark rock, inviting a descent into the Aegean below. The water, textured and mottled like ancient glass, stretches toward a softly undulating horizon. Floating beyond the edge of the visible is Megisti—distant, dreamlike, and edged with the hush of ancient stories.
 
The gold leaf sky lends it an otherworldy quality it becomes a radiant, gilded expanse that transforms the everyday into the eternal. The gold doesn’t just illuminate the seascape—it sanctifies it. The interplay between the cool cyanotype and warm gold evokes the tension between longing and belonging, nostalgia and transcendence.
 
Here, Paradise is not just a place; it is a memory held in sunlight and saltwater, in the space between one shore and another.
 
 
To the Blue (Paradise Found)
The metal burns beneath my hands,
sun-warmed, sea-kissed,
the only invitation I need.
 
Below, the water dances—
salt-laced and endless,
its surface trembling
with light and promise.
 
I breathe in the sun,
and leap.
The ocean swallows me whole,
cool arms wrapped around my ribs,
washing off the weight
of everything but joy.
 
Here,
in the hush between heartbeats,
I am buoyed—
by salt, by sky,
by the wild, laughing blue
of being alive.
 
And as I rise,
hair slicked back like a seal,
the sun spills gold across the waves—
and I know:
I have found it.

This is paradise.
Right here.
In the water,
in the light,
in me.
 
Also available as A3 size
 
Cyanotype is a photographic process used to produce distinctively dark blue toned images.  It is a technique achieved by fusing chemicals and applying them to photosensitive paper in a darkened room.  You then place the negative image on top of the paper and expose it to sunlight.