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Prompt: Edward Weston: Oceana 1939


The sand in the photograph seems to undulate, to move visibly on the paper. Deep furrows of dark curves evenly slicing through the lighter colored sand as if water is flowing, though it is clear from the endless mounds of sand that the photograph is taken in a desert. The title of the photograph is Oceana and one can easily see that this was once an ocean bottom with miles of water on top with currents that no doubt created the same kind of curves in the sand. It is clear how water currents would etch such a regular pattern in the sand, but one wonders how could wind? And surely wind is the sculptor of this plain, what else could be? The hills of sands stretch off in every direction, the same regular pattern on each, as if a human sculptor has taken a sharp tool and drawn this lines on, one at a time. A closer look at the patterns give way to abstract pictures of humans, some with their arms outstretched, others with two legs that hold full bodies, lying or standing, side-by-side, forming an intentional geometric pattern. How can this be? Perhaps this isn’t sand at all, but rather sandstone that has hardened over millions of years holding the patterns of those ocean waters forever. That perhaps is what this is because it is incomprehensible that wind of any kind could create such perfectly spaced mounds. The more one looks at the photo the more otherworldly it becomes. A cosmic artist must be at work; how else could such beauty be created?

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