Images and descriptions of planet Mars captivated me since my early twenties, when I began traveling to deserts around the world. The desert’s desolation and beauty grew from the imaginary landscape of Mars that I shaped in my mind to a place of peace, wonder and spirituality. The barren Sonora desert, the colossal canyons and bluffs in the American Southwest, and the serene embrace between desert and sea in Baja California, are places where I have reached a state of personal balance and a profound admiration for the beauty of our planet. Anyone who loves the desert will inevitably turn to the mightiest of all, the Sahara, a place of such immensity that it would take more than a lifetime to explore. The Sahara is a place where time has no meaning; it’s a place where scale is everything. Nor words or pictures can describe what is like to stand in the middle of the vast emptiness in Thaffassasset, or what is like to look into the eyes of a Tuareg elder. The photographs in this exhibition were made over a period of four years during expeditions through Mauritania and Niger. I’m grateful to share with you a selection of images that represent the landscape and the people of this rarely seen part of the world.