The photographer Cheryle St. Onge observes the world in her own way, and her latest book, Calling the Birds Home published by L’Artiere, is the result of a work that moves through memory, nature, and loss without ever forcing them, allowing the images to express what words often fail to hold.
The project is rooted in her relationship with her mother, in her illness — vascular dementia — and in her absence, transforming a personal experience into a photographic journey that speaks to anyone who has tried to hold on to something slipping away.
The photographs stand out for their delicacy. Light entering through windows, hands brushing against surfaces, fragile bodies that reveal more than they show. Each image is a fragment of intimacy, a gesture that becomes a metaphor for the deeper meaning we associate with caring for someone. Nature accompanies this journey: it is a mirror, a presence that continues to respond when everything else falls silent.
The rhythm of the book is slow, almost meditative. St. Onge builds a language made of silences, of small details that grow immense when observed closely. A horse in the water, a face resting against another body, a figure seated in the morning light: everyday scenes that open up like revelations. It is in this simplicity that the work finds its strength, turning vulnerability into something luminous.
What strikes the most is the natural way the artist intertwines fragility and resilience. The images don’t try to soften the pain, nor to display it. They accompany it, give it space, let it become part of the inner landscape that runs throughout the work. The result is a book that doesn’t just speak of loss, but also of continuity: of the ways we keep searching for those who are no longer here, of the signs that remain in places, in objects, in the light.
Calling the Birds Home teaches us to look at the world as if it could return what we thought was lost. A book that doesn’t ask to be understood, but to be experienced. And, page after page, it reminds us how photography can preserve our deepest bonds, transforming them into something that belongs to all of us.
