12.6.08

various small pieces of ocean


















A roughly definable area of sea

While I was away, I was taking many photos of the changing sea. And then, fortuitously, I read the following:

'Mr Palomar now tries to limit his field of observation; if he bears in mind a square zone of, say ten meters of shore by ten meters of sea, he can carry out an inventory of all the wave-movements that are repeated with varying frequency within a given time-interval. The hard thing is to fix the boundaries of this zone, because if, for example he considers as the side farthest from him the outstanding line of an advancing wave, as this line approaches him and rises it hides from his eyes everything behind it; and thus the space under examination is overturned and at the same time crushed.'

Mr Palomar (Palomar's Vacation: Palomar on the Beach: Reading a Wave), Italo Calvino.

In fact Mr Palomar had many interesting things to say. The perfect holiday companion.