This is a series shot on El Camino de Santiago in the north of Spain, a pilgrimage of 500 miles that takes about 5 weeks of traversing on foot. This photo essay aims to capture the surrounding environment of the Camino, communicating the visual sensation of heat. While the photos all differ in subject, mood and moment, they are united in their palpable sweat. A yellowing at the edges of the page, a perspiration at the corner of one’s forehead, the sound of another walker panting to catch their breath. These details all weave the fabric of sleepy haze that settles thickly upon the shoulders of a village, a field, a city and pushes its inhabitants to the edge of reality – the melting point. It’s at this melting point that we find people driven to walk for a month, searching for the path of a man all but lost to himself, thousands of years earlier. Every night they spend under a new roof, surrounded by strangers, each conferring with their own demons in the haze of silence, punctuated only by their own footsteps and breath.
The start of the Camino is marked by La Meseta, a seemingly unending desert that serves to test those passing through, forcing away those unequipped to make it through the entirety of the Camino. While the heat is oppressive and forces walkers to begin their journey as early as 3 am each day, the Meseta is most renowned for the forced confrontation one must have with oneself. When there’s nothing but miles and miles of sameness every day, pushing through the near solid air, all one has is oneself. This is a photo essay about persevering through extreme temperatures, yes, but more importantly about learning to exist with oneself. Through fluctuating environments, fleeting walking companions and the transience of a trip like the Camino, the only certainty one has to hold on to is the self. The power of the Camino works to melt through the layers of distance we create from ourselves, to force the confrontation of what lies at our core and trust what we find there.
