The passion I have for photography and the creation of a visual masterpiece feeds my soul. I can take a picture of what anyone looks like, but being able to capture who they are is my air. I especially love when a woman stands in front of me full of the words of the world swirling through her head. Words that have brought hesitation to her everyday life. Then I click. Show her what's in my camera. What my eye sees. The beauty that she truly is. I remove the words of the world and her face softens. She smiles softer, her hands become softer. She moves smoothly, and we create visual history together. Derek Walcott sums it up for me in his poem Love After Love ... 'The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other's welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was yourself. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life.'
- Roxanne Marks