Basket of Sand

It is a habit of mine to take, once a year, a long and lingering tour of my picture archive. To see what still speaks to me and what I can no longer relate to.

The images are deeply personal. I was there. I experienced this. I stood by this hard working woman. This is why I cannot think of a better tool than a camera to document the experience, the inner experience, of such, often sudden, moments.

My approach to making pictures is a belief that we don’t necessarily remember things how we saw them but rather how we felt them. Such approach liberates one to combine and play with tools and techniques in order to reach that particular moment in time, that particular feeling of place. In this case a riverbank in Kathmandu where I came across this woman at work.

"Basket of Sand" from the collection "Kathmandu", © Päivi Maria Wells, 2026

Here is an interior mock up of the print "Basket of Sand"

***