Funny how some people come in to your life, however fleetingly, but somehow you’re left with a strong sense they appeared for good reason, perhaps to give you a message or a life lesson. Such was an experience recently in Portugal, whilst there on a brief visit to sort out some business matters.

I had been given some news I had been waiting for, but sadly not the news I wanted to hear and was feeling generally flat, let down. The following day, with a bit of a dark cloud over my head, I decided to try and cheer myself up with a mini road trip and took off in the rental car in the direction of the Alentejo. I’d already done a fair bit of exploring here over the past ten years or so and it’s a region I really like. The loose plan was to track down a church I’d previously photographed on digital, so I could re-photograph it with the Hasselblad on film. Not being able to remember exactly where it was, I ended up criss crossing about trying to find some familiar marker, but had a feeling I’d taken a wrong turn somewhere and wasn’t really anywhere near where I was supposed to be.

One thing I have learned in the years I’ve been taking photos, is to keep your options open as Plan A’s don’t necessarily always work out. So quite fortuitously, on one of the Eucalyptus lined roads that cut though the region, I passed what looked like an interesting Plan B. I pulled up in a lay-by next to a rather overgrown looking football pitch, amused at the sight of the pitch being populated by a group of lazy, grazing sheep, rather than enthusiastic players. A man on a bicycle was circling round them, like their coach, and the whole scene just looked odd, incongruous and certainly worthy of a picture or two. I fished out my camera and wandered over to where the man was now sitting in one of the dugouts. “Hi” I called out in Portuguese “are these your sheep? Can I take a photo?”. He nodded and asked if I spoke French. “Yes” I replied, not taking the question personally or necessarily a judgement on my ability to speak Portuguese, but my French is arguably better, so was quite happy to switch languages. Over the course of the next hour and in between sporadic and sudden bouts of heavy rain, something quite characteristic of the weather in the Alentejo at that time of year, we then embarked on what I can only say was a conversation that was just right for what was going on in my head, one of those much needed levellers. We talked life, the universe, religion, war.

Antonio, I learned, led a very a simple life in the Alentejo. He had lived in Switzerland for many years, where he’d learned French, but he now had three and a half acres of land and tended his sheep. I couldn’t place how old he was but I guess he was retired if men like him ever do. At some point in his life he’d found faith, and was a Jehovah’s Witness. But he believed very much in a deeper power, a force that knitted everything together. Our conversation, and his apparent contentedness at just being, shifted my perspective entirely that day. We shook hands and I went on my way, grateful for the encounter.