Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to move this mountain, grain-by-infinitesimal-grain, to the other side of the world.

Me: Yipee! When do I start!

One day I'm going to own a camera that does justice to black and whites. Ah, one day...

About a year ago I was shown a book of photographs by Sebastiao Salgado, a Brazilian photographer / photojournalist. The subject of the book and his choice of medium seemed almost counterintuitive - Africa in black and white. The pictures speak for themselves though, ranging from images that capture the sheer scale of the continent to mesmeric, evocative portraits. It's as if shooting in black and white gave him both a canvas equal to the challenge the vast land presents and a brush fine enough to detail the minutae of the lives lived within it. Stripped of the distraction of colour, the photographs leave one with only an overpowering sense of the humanity of his subjects*.

Unfortunately, a Google search doesn't really yield some of his best photographs (or very many, for that matter), but still worth a look-see.

* I've talked solely about the aesthetics of Salgado's photographs here, but being a journalist his work is set in the context of larger social issues.

Fizzy herbal bath sprinkled with tiny silver stars. Vanilla-scented candle in shades of cream and brown. Bread on the soft rock station. Ah, how the old cliches work wonders on a fortnight's tiredness.

I've been mourning the death of our fledgeling friendship. But tonight I'll let my wistfulness run out with the bath water. It was grand while it lasted. You know I wish you well.