Forests have stayed with me since photography first took hold of my attention. In late 2023, a journey from Spain into northern Portugal led me to Mata da Albergaria — a dense, ancient forest, where something long imagined seemed, unexpectedly, to take form.

The first encounter happened from within the car. The forest appeared in fragments: trunks, shadows, brief openings between branches. Everything moved past too quickly to fully register, as if the place resisted being seen all at once.

Returning on foot at dusk, something shifted. The forest became closer, more continuous — light settling across leaves, moisture in the air, the ground responding to each step. Small sounds emerged gradually: branches breaking underfoot, distant water, wind moving through the canopy.

Here, perception no longer follows a single direction. It accumulates — in roots, in growth, in decay, in the slow persistence of the landscape itself. The images do not attempt to describe the forest, but remain with it, tracing a condition where attention slows and begins to disperse.

In this space, the distance from constructed environments becomes perceptible, giving way to a quieter and more sustained form of attention.