Throughout history, people have looked to the earth for answers. Stones have been worn as symbols of protection, carried as vessels of hope and treasured for the meanings we choose to give them. Today, crystal quartz has found new life within a global wellness industry, where ideas of healing, balance and spiritual renewal have transformed an ordinary mineral into an object of extraordinary desire.

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Yet every crystal begins somewhere.

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Long before it reaches a carefully curated shelf or is held in the palm of a hand, it exists deep beneath the soil. In a small rural community in South Africa, families now dig beneath their homes and into the surrounding hillsides, searching for quartz that will travel thousands of kilometres before finding its place in homes and collections around the world. What has emerged is an informal mining economy driven by global demand, where the promise of a single crystal offers the possibility of income in communities where opportunities remain scarce.

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The earth reveals its treasures reluctantly. Every metre dug demands physical endurance, patience and risk. Narrow shafts disappear into darkness, supported by little more than hope and instinct, where collapse, flooding and suffocation remain constant companions. Here, quartz is not a symbol of healing but a means of survival.

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These photographs are not concerned with the beliefs we attach to crystals, but with the lives that become entwined with them. They ask us to look beyond the polished surface and consider the unseen journey of every stone—from earth to market, from hardship to desire. In doing so, they reveal how value is never inherent in the object itself, but is shaped by the landscapes, labour and human stories that remain hidden beneath it.

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Commissioned by The Wall Street Journal, Beneath the Crystal explores the intersection of belief, global consumer culture and informal mining, reminding us that even the smallest objects can carry within them the weight of a place, the labour of many hands and the quiet dignity of those whose lives remain largely unseen