Caroline Tompkins

"I’ve always thought of these images as the pictures too beautiful not to show. Mostly from summers, they create a photographic utopia," says Caroline. "They were taken all over—Cape Cod, Czech Republic, South Africa, upstate New York, Italy, Maryland, New Mexico, California, Hawaii—but they all live in a particular zen state in my brain. A time when photographs came easily. 

The people in the images are friends, family members, and strangers I've met along the way. They’re participating in my fantasy. They’re unencumbered by work and in an endless state of play. The fruit is at its most ripe. The light is at its most beautiful. The horses are all wild horses, too. 

It’s all my delusion of freedom. The name Fool’s Paradise refers to the denial that these idyllic moments will ever end. Photography is the paradise that allows them to last forever."