Broken Waters

A slight paradox occurs to me while looking at this picture of an angled perspective of the Break Water, especially while looking at the figures towards the mid-ground of the image sitting on the un-hewn stone, even with regard to the dark figure standing out within the grey towards the foreground: these men, frozen in this locus of sepia, are unknown, may be unidentifiable biographically, they never knew a time when this grey stone silver in the sound did not exist. The construction of the Break Water began in eighteen twelve, and with the picture being taken in eighteen ninety three, a space of eighty one years exists between them , the stone they are stood upon, and the imprint of light which sits before me. There is another separation which exists here: the space between myself and these men who stare in to the camera. Another one hundred and thirteen years stand between the shutter and my own eyes. It comes to mind that they were gone long before my own birth, yet the constant of the Break Water remains out there in the sound.


July 2006.