Quarryman Eyes is an ongoing project that began in late 2022, focusing on the exploration of abandoned and inactive quarries located in central Spain. These are places where nature has been instrumentalized for purely economic and industrial purposes, exploited for as long as profitable, and then left with scars that may take an eternity to heal. They are solitary and silent, often away from any inhabited areas, and they lie at an intersection of neglect: environmentally many are considered beyond any possible repair or saving. Urban explorers and other curious types tend to be more interested in abandoned buildings or ruins. Owners of the quarries usually don’t bother with fences, security or even any signs warning against trespassing. Perhaps not so predictably, vandalism is almost completely absent from them too (it’s a high energy / low motivation pursuit, which is why vandals don't drive to obscure locations just to shatter some windowpanes). As for their identity and character as such, abandoned quarries are full of emerging, altered and accidental landscapes, where unusual dialogues between human activity and nature are developing constantly. Barren sand plains, lone trees pioneering a slow reconquest, seasonal lagoons that come and go, gravel mounds slowly becoming miniature hills… The interplay is made more interesting by the stark asymmetry between the speed and violence with which we have altered these places, and the gentle way nature is reclaiming them back, as if knowing that it has millions of years ahead to fully erase any trace of our exploits. Initially I intended the project to be mostly a documentation of our difficult relationship with nature, but the humble desolate beauty of these places has eventually taken over, and led to a contemplative and gentle approach to them, a calm dialogue necessary to understand their rich visual language. Quarryman Eyes continues to unfold, currently constituting a very significant part of my photographic activity. I still feel like a privileged witness while roaming these strange limbos, some of which are amongst the most unique and magnetic places I have encountered.