Mario Cravo Neto has used stones as motifs in many of his staged studio photographs. It is almost a natural choice for a photographer who started his artistic career as a sculptor. His staged work connects a modern photographic aesthetic with Afro-Brazilian and European myths. Cravo Neto's work makes no pretense of authenticity &endash;it does not aim to document or even present, but rather to re-present in the histrionic sense. According to a Yoruba myth entrenched in the culture of his native Bahía, certain stones are inhabited by the god Eshu-Elegba. In "Silence" (1992) a beautiful dark stone blocks the ear of a woman. Does she not want to hear, is she unable to hear, or is she not allowed to hear? Silence is either a blessing or torture. "Heart of Stone" (1991) involves the popular figure-of-speech of not feeling emotions and also a religious insight that stone is at the center of our existence. One of the first human technologies was based on stone; our planet is a huge rock. In "Heart of Stone" stone is an offering as well as a symbol for the origin of making, of transforming, of writing, and of being human. "Scribe" (1992), on the other hand, portrays the themes of writing and working with stone as sacred rituals. Writing and depicting on stone are powerful images in that they show how the relatively short-lived human endeavor of representing with symbols has sought the enduring support of stone.