Drawing inspiration from Chatwin’s singular but by no means exhaustive tour, the New Zealand-born photographer Derek Henderson – another subject of her majesty – set out with his Mamiya 67 and 4 x 5 field camera, using rich color negatives to retrace and recreate the essential patterns from Chatwin’s masterpiece, resulting in this lush series of images for Holiday. “I started driving from Bahia Blanca and ended up in Tierra Del Fuego,” Henderson recalls. “We drove as far south as you can go in a vehicle in the world – to the end of the earth, so to speak.” And with these postcards from the end of the world – eternal images of rock, ice, water, grass and sunlight, as well as all variety of testament to the resilience of human civilization and life – Henderson has fastidiously captured the spirit of In Patagonia, its conflicting sense of adventure and boredom on the road, the lonely rhythms of walking and riding buses and even hitching rides on trucks. In turn, he has visited many of the same places Chatwin saw first. But he has also made the region – in its rugged expanse, in its pristine blue skies, red sunsets and dawns and straight, unceasing roads – something new and entirely his own.

Thomas Chatterton Williams