Scherm Afbeelding 2023 01 31 Om 16.15.Png
  • WORK
    • forever
    • meaningful awakening
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    • join the unknown
    • the quest
    • out of time
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PHOTOGRAPHER

Book

TheQuest3kl

The Quest - a photographic journey based on the novel Night train to Lisbon          

One day I read Pascal Mercier's novel Night train to Lisbon. Immediately after reading the first page it blows my mind. I am, as it were, sucked into the book and read it in one breath. The tone of the book touches me, but above all it is the main character, a classical language teacher from Bern, who grabs me. From one moment to the next he gives up his familiar life and literally and figuratively goes on a journey. My desire has been touched: I immediately know that I want to visualize this book.

Years will follow when I keep rereading the book. And at the beginning of 2015 I decide to realize my dream.

With the novel in my hand, I book my first trip to Bern. Just before that I meet the writer; it is an incredibly beautiful encounter that proves to be nourishing and inspiring for the journeys that follow. With the novel and the camera in my hand, I travel several times to Bern and Lisbon. In search of the essence of the story and, as it turns out, the essence of my own life.

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The grand finale will come in the spring of 2018: like the main character in the book, I will board the night train to Lisbon and travel from Bern via Paris to Irun. The circle is complete when I get off the night train in Lisbon. My photo book The Questand the exhibition will follow shortly after.

This photographic journey reminds me of what is important to me: my inner freedom, to know who and where I am, what I do, how I do things and above all how I manage to deal with it. To discover that I know where I'm going, but not where I'll end up.

As someone who needs images to understand the world, I realize I need such a journey. In Bern and in Lisbon I recognize that different feelings like happiness, loneliness, sadness and longing, are all part of me and and that this combination will take me further. I need those opposites and the movement between them to create. They remind me every time to keep my mind alive and to trust my intuition.

Purchase a copy of my book, with a personal note, below!

TheQuest3kl

© 2023 annemarie hoogwoud.

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