I LOVE THE OCEAN! I grew up in a landlocked country in the middle of Europe, and I was already fourteen years old when I saw the sea for the first time. The occasion was very special, because I visited St. Petersburg (then called Leningrad) in Russia during the White Nights – the time of the year when day and night intertwine. It was an amazing view, even though I only saw a small portion of the Baltic Sea, the Gulf of Finland.
The first time I experienced the actual ocean happened a decade later, when I moved to the East Coast of the US. My favorite places to visit the shore were in Maine, on Cape Cod and in Rhode Island. Two decades later I moved to the West Coast, where visiting the ocean has become one of my regular activities. I don’t actually like to swim in the ocean, but I love looking at it, listening to it, and even smelling it. The early morning beach (without the crowds) is very calming to me. It’s just me, a tiny spot on Earth looking at the vast, powerful body of water that covers almost three quarters of our planet. The weirdest feeling is to be actually standing on the very edge of a continent. I am standing on the land, and before me is the “never ending” ocean. One of the reasons I am more drawn to the ocean during low tide is the fact, that I am able to take a few more steps into the ocean, but still stay on the land. And while I’m walking there, I get to experience plants and animals that are usually hidden from me.
I took some pictures of the low tide at Little Corona del Mar a few days ago – it wasn’t the lowest tide, but it still felt and looked amazing. How did it feel? Like this:
The first time I experienced the actual ocean happened a decade later, when I moved to the East Coast of the US. My favorite places to visit the shore were in Maine, on Cape Cod and in Rhode Island. Two decades later I moved to the West Coast, where visiting the ocean has become one of my regular activities. I don’t actually like to swim in the ocean, but I love looking at it, listening to it, and even smelling it. The early morning beach (without the crowds) is very calming to me. It’s just me, a tiny spot on Earth looking at the vast, powerful body of water that covers almost three quarters of our planet. The weirdest feeling is to be actually standing on the very edge of a continent. I am standing on the land, and before me is the “never ending” ocean. One of the reasons I am more drawn to the ocean during low tide is the fact, that I am able to take a few more steps into the ocean, but still stay on the land. And while I’m walking there, I get to experience plants and animals that are usually hidden from me.
I took some pictures of the low tide at Little Corona del Mar a few days ago – it wasn’t the lowest tide, but it still felt and looked amazing. How did it feel? Like this:
I have been asked a lot lately about the creation of my Hidden Within thematic images. Let me share the major steps of the process with you.To begin with, I took pictures of the bark of many California Sycamore trees. I looked for trees with colorful peeling patterns, and made sure, that my images were as sharp as possible.
David Nelson, lives in Buena Park, CA, delivers a thematic project that explores ‘Giant’ commercial signs and business friendly sculptures from Southern California’s boom years. These huge ‘sky-punching’ works of neon, steel, and plastic are iconic metaphors that testify to the egos that drove the urban sprawl and rapid unchecked development. His work is large in capture with exquisite points of view, and the use of light isolates the images as commercial works of art. Yet, his thematic “Giants” (a solo body of work), renders deeper allegories, for each of the images tells us in two-dimensions about the three-dimensional, oversized egos that crafted bold visual statements to promote their enterprises.
Pamela Lagoni, a resident of Irvine, CA, explores mechanical detail with robust images of gears, spokes, and clutches, each of them rendered with an ‘in-close’ perspective. Her prints form a body of work entitled, “Radius’ of Motion”, draw viewers into a world of images that present the hard edges of power works as well as the soft glamour of chrome and candy apple paints. However, these tiny details are in reality huge metaphors that portray the discipline and order of mechanical construction from images of parts already in service. As viewers, we can feel the pain of wear and tear, the entropy of use, and ultimately the need for replacement and repair.
Gizella Nyquist resides in Irvine, CA, and presents an inventive exploration of form and structure derived from her study of tree bark, the California Sycamore specifically. Her eye for detail at one level and her sense of the grander meaning of nature pushed her to explore various forms “Hidden Within” the rich textures and colors of the bark. In post-production, she assembles the bark and in the process discovered new faces that are hidden within. Rabbits, birds, cats, and more suddenly reveal themselves with character and we see intricate details of man’s relationship to structure.
