Surface Reeds, Meniscus (B&W)

Near Tofino, BC (Artist Statement)

Surface Reeds, Meniscus (B&W): Near Tofino, BC, Canada (2011) - B&W abstract macro photo showing dark shadows and blurry bubbles on the surface of a tide pool

There is something cryptic and fascinating about the place between air and water: the punctured plane where lines begin to slant, where the meniscus rises and dips in quarter-spheres, below which things cannot breath. There are reflections, there is embedded floating debris; it seems that the surface is a thing as separate as the other two.

When I was composing this photograph, focusing very close on the place where the reeds entered the water, a tiny water beetle crawled slowly into focus and out of it again, splayed legs supported by liquid tension as if walking on mercury. In such an impossible place, in such an in-between world, there was life.

The sun far beneath the ocean, I made a last group of exposures in the glassy tide pool, the magic floating bug still somewhere outside the frame. As the darkness came, a breeze began to tickle the calm water. By the time I was out of the forest, a strong wind was whipping through the trees. I was sure that the pool's calm surface was gone like candle-smoke.

— Surface Reeds, Meniscus (B&W): Near Tofino, BC, Canada (2011)

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