In the old villages, when a question was too heavy for words, people went to the one who spoke with fire.
He never answered them himself. He wore no face of his own, only a mask with long braids falling from it, so that no one could tell whose voice was speaking. His feet stood on springs, and he barely touched the earth.
He took a staff with an iron basket at each end, filled the baskets with embers, and shook it until the night replied.
Ten thousand sparks hang in the air for a fraction of a second, as if the world had agreed to stand still and listen. Then they fall like golden snow, and the question is gone. Not answered. Burnt.
This was the last image made before a long silence. For a year and a half there were no fairy tales. When the story returned, it came back the same way, through living fire, and the first work of the new saga was a phoenix.
Shot at a performance of the fire theatre Kresiva on 25 October 2024: one exposure of 1/640 of a second, unstaged, no light but the fire.
(Fine Art Photography. Created in October 2024.)
