Swirled Sheet Metal

Near Baker, CA (Artist Statement)

Swirled Sheet Metal: Near Baker, CA, USA (2008) - Fine art photograph of brushings, chipping paint, and swirling scratches on the surface of a piece of twisted sheet metal

For an instant, this small piece of a destroyed cargo container looked every bit like the bottom of the ocean. The water, the current, the barnacles on rocks, the swirling reeds, the living dark sandy bottom. As I walked along the ocean floor, weightless and slow, I kicked up debris, and they rained down around me like spent sparks from a fire.

The surface of the metal even felt like a barnacle-covered tide pool rock. I photographed it at an angle that made the shapes seem to flex and relax, tumble and flow with deep waves begun under other continents. I like the intangible sense of space in this photograph: blindness in murky water. There don't seem to be any fish.

— Swirled Sheet Metal: Near Baker, CA, USA (2008)

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