Malta

Sing, O Muse, of the voyage to the wondrous isle of Malta in the year two thousand and two, when I journeyed forth with my fellow scholars to that ancient realm in the midst of the wine-dark sea. Though the island offered few spectacles for the eyes of travelers, yet its simplicity instilled a profound sense of contentment in our spirits, as if we had found refuge in the blessed islands of the blest.

During that sojourn, I bore with me my analog image-maker—the device that captures moments as the Fates capture lives—alas with a malfunctioning aperture ring that remained fully open like the gates of heaven. Thus my images were imbued with copious amounts of bokeh, that misty effect that softens the background as dreams soften reality, long before such techniques became fashionable among the image-makers of later days.

Moreover, the film I had chosen—the Ilford HP5 PLUS 400—was erroneously developed as if it were a color film, imparting a beguiling sepia tint to the final images like the patina of age upon ancient bronze. An unexpected outcome this was, O Muse, yet far superior to the commonplace computational sepia filters that later generations would employ, for this bore the mark of happy accident rather than calculated design.