Moment in Time

A river is never quite where you left it. Even standing on the bank, looking at the same stretch of water, you see one set of shapes give way to another. The sky changes too, though it can take a second glance to notice. A cloud thins at the edges. The light falls somewhere new.

The photographs in Moment in Time were taken in succession, looking at rivers and skies. They are close in time, but each records a different view. A current bends, a cloud opens, and by the next photograph the scene has shifted again. Some changes are obvious. Others only appear when you look from one panel to the next.

The work draws on panta rhei — everything flows — and on the simple act of looking again. You can follow what has changed, what has disappeared and what has taken its place. Go back to the first panel and you may notice a detail you missed. The longer you look, the harder it becomes to think of the river or sky as a single, settled image.

A photograph lets us spend time with a view that lasted only briefly. Here, each panel holds one such instant. Together, the panels show what happens around it: the small changes that continue whether or not we are paying attention. I like that the images can be so close to one another in time and still be entirely different.

The photographs are transferred by hand onto ultra-light 5 gsm washi, fused onto hand-folded acrylic and sealed with a protective varnish.

You can never step in the same river twice.