Your book on mangroves is nothing short of a visual pilgrimage. Every page draws me deeper into a world that feels at once fierce and fragile, ancient yet alive in the moment. The photographs are marvels - windows into places and moments most of us could never witness with the naked eye. Without your lens, how could I have stood so close to the steady gaze of a crocodile, or seen the chilling beauty of a snake’s blue, bifurcated tongue, or the almost hypnotic gleam in the eye of a Russell’s viper? These images are not merely captured; they are experienced through your vision.

 

What struck me just as deeply is the way you have arranged the journey - from the raw wilderness, teeming with life that commands respect, to scenes of utter serenity where light and water blend into a meditative calm. It’s as if the book breathes, moving between heartbeat and stillness, between thrill and quiet wonder. The light-washed waterscapes stopped me on my tracks. They feel almost like a dream distilled onto paper - moments when the world slows down and asks nothing of you but to look, feel, and lose yourself. Those frames carry not just beauty, but an emotional hush.

 

I find myself unable to simply ‘go through’ the book. I linger over every page, letting each photograph sink in, tracing the way your thoughts have shaped the story behind the images. I am internalising not just what you saw, but how you saw it - and that takes time. This is not work to be hurried through. It is a gift that asks for presence.

 

There is still so much for me to see in these pages, but I already know this: only someone with a truly healing hand could create something that moves between the wild’s ferocity and nature’s gentlest embrace with such grace.

Thank you so much for the copy of Mangroves 2. I will read and see further and write to you again and I hope many more people take interest in procuring the book in order to understand what a beautiful world it is, beyond and how we in cities perceive it.