‘Permanence is but a word of degrees’ RW Emerson
The lens freezes the entire field of view,
rendering the sea and its shifting population
of ice fragments as enduringly permanent
as the surrounding geology. It is a visual
equivalence that is, of course, illusory.
At the same time, in an absolute sense,
nothing is permanent. Every element of
these images — rock, sea, ice, clouds —
is subject to the forces of transformation,
it is simply whether the rate of change is
measured from moment to moment or
across millennia.
Photography
John Pawson