Natural juxtaposition

Ten days in western Scotland can seem like an eternity. There, the landscape is the main attraction, and the only crowds consist of sheep.

Walk is what I did. My most important decision every day? Do I walk toward the ocean or toward the mountains?

In Scotland, one is allowed to walk the land regardless of its ownership. So I became an expert gate jumper. Soon, there was no gate – or stone wall – that I couldn't overcome. This added an element of excitement to my otherwise meditative walks.

One day I came across a rusty metal post (above left). It was at the site of an old stone house that nature had reclaimed. I took the picture. I came back home.

I knew that the photo was perfect for an art piece. One day, I decided that I needed to find a companion image in which culture overcame nature. Wherever I went, I searched for that elusive image. Weeks, months passed. Nothing seemed to be quite right. After a while, the search haunted me.

Then, on a cloudy afternoon in Quito, Ecuador, there it was, the perfect companion image. What was a mundane scene, a place of no clear relevance, became my perfect spot – the site where culture had overtaken nature.

I rediscovered why I love art. It allowed me to find perfection in the world. In the end, the images that worked together had been separated by thousands of miles. That was a lot of gates and fences to jump.