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as a girl
she could turn into a river.
when she wanted to get away from here
and go there, she only had to lay down
and lean into the easiest route.
the going and arriving happened all at once —
she was always tumbling down rocks and cliffs
beneath the slant of the sun at the same time as she
pooled, still as a mountain, at the place she never, ever
finished going to.
-Michelle Porter from Inquiries
This series was inspired by Childhood, Remembered, the last poem in Michelle Porter’s recently published collection Inquiries. Rivers exert a powerful pull on both of us. They are also photographically largely unexplored in Newfoundland where visual representation of the island mostly focuses on ocean and littoral areas. Shifting the focus from coastal Newfoundland to its riverscapes and borrowing ideas from both pictorialism and contemporary approaches to documentary and landscape photography, this series examines the notion that we have to find new ways to rebuild our relationship with the natural world on a more equitable, respectful, and spiritual foundation. The photographs were made on Big River, Rennie’s River, and Waterford, Manuels, and Salmonier rivers on Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula.