People are usually the most temporary things in a landscape.
At Bar Beach the long exposure has reversed the usual hierarchy of a photograph. The horizon stays. The ocean stays. But the surfers begin to disappear.
Two small figures remain beyond the break while another closer to shore has become little more than a dark disturbance within the moving water. The wave itself is no longer a wave in the conventional photographic sense; time has stretched it into a pale, uncertain form.
I like the contradiction.
Surfing is about movement, timing and an intensely physical engagement with the sea, yet the photograph makes that activity almost silent. People who were completely present while I stood there have become only traces.
For a few moments they occupied this part of the ocean.
The photograph remembers them differently.
Artwork Information
Artist: Paul Foley
Collection: Intersection
Title: Ghosts, Bar Beach #6327
Artwork: #6327
Location: Bar Beach, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia
Subject: Surfers and breaking waves
Medium: Black and white fine art photography
Process: Long exposure photography
Format: Square
Genre: Fine art seascape / Australian coastal photography
Themes: Time, human presence, movement, transience, ocean, memory
Edition: Limited edition of 5 prints + up to 2 Artist Proofs
Print: Archival fine art pigment print on cotton rag paper
Certificate: Signed Certificate of Authenticity
This Limited Edition is available in three sizes, with a maximum of five prints plus up to two Artist Proofs.
People are usually the most temporary things in a landscape.
At Bar Beach the long exposure has reversed the usual hierarchy of a photograph. The horizon stays. The ocean stays. But the surfers begin to disappear.
Two small figures remain beyond the break while another closer to shore has become little more than a dark disturbance within the moving water. The wave itself is no longer a wave in the conventional photographic sense; time has stretched it into a pale, uncertain form.
I like the contradiction.
Surfing is about movement, timing and an intensely physical engagement with the sea, yet the photograph makes that activity almost silent. People who were completely present while I stood there have become only traces.
For a few moments they occupied this part of the ocean.
The photograph remembers them differently.
Artwork Information
Artist: Paul Foley
Collection: Intersection
Title: Ghosts, Bar Beach #6327
Artwork: #6327
Location: Bar Beach, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia
Subject: Surfers and breaking waves
Medium: Black and white fine art photography
Process: Long exposure photography
Format: Square
Genre: Fine art seascape / Australian coastal photography
Themes: Time, human presence, movement, transience, ocean, memory
Edition: Limited edition of 5 prints + up to 2 Artist Proofs
Print: Archival fine art pigment print on cotton rag paper
Certificate: Signed Certificate of Authenticity
This Limited Edition is available in three sizes, with a maximum of five prints plus up to two Artist Proofs.
