First I looked at it absent-mindedly, then attentively. Among lights and shadows, the image took me back to my childhood, when I gathered shells, chose stones on Earth’s skin, under the sunlight. Treasure that would never be mine, condemned to fall from my hands, tosmall for so many findings.
It was a photo by Sandra.
It is a long time since I received the impact from that image, but I haven’t forgotten it.
She teaches at Santa Cecília University Law School, where we met again. No longer a teenager, as when she was a trainee at Santos Culture Bureau with us. A serious competent professional, she doesn’t speak much and doesn’t linger long in the teacher’s room, where I got to know she continued to photogragh. I wanted to see. Curious to find out the course followed by the lens that had captured that image left on my desk.
I open the book fearfully. I confess. Those nude images once more make me look at the ground closely as in my childhood: satins and chills of a familiar skin. Maternal earth, admirable. Live crust. In each pore, the seed of its own reflected image.
The freshness of that first photo is still present. The improved technique speaks of an artist who creates with what she feels and knows, in perfect unity. Consistency of the technique rendering service to the surprising discovery.
We live at a time of chewed, open wide images, without any mystery. Sandra’s work , on the contrary, leads to dreams, to an inner voyage, to a far end. Rich, richer still the longer we pore over it.
Sandra does not stammer. She masters the language of light. Unpredictable, she knows how to flee from the commonplace.

I will begin my voyage. Who knows whether we shall meet?

I will go in by image number 72. I am lost in the night horizon, where the Earth tells stories that are written on number 44. I will pasture herbs of buffaloes on 112. Hypnotized by the sun on number 70, I will talk to the "Iaras" on number 124. I will applaud the rupestrian artist on 38, I shall like to rest on number 128 so as to re-start the journey. Through other pores. Through Every Pore.