The magazine of the photo-essay
September 2018 issue
“A free, really high quality photo-essay magazine. Fabulous!”
Stephen Fry. British actor, writer and film maker
by Tria Giovan
Is it possible to discover the infinite in a three-mile stretch of beach on
the eastern end of Long Island? Sand Sea Sky: The Beaches of
Sagaponack, a ten-year/10,000 image project from veteran New York
photographer Tria Giovan affirms one can. “At times subtle and soft,” says
Giovan, “other times vibrant and surging, these natural forces are capable
of invoking peacefulness and calm, or powerful strength and awe.
Mesmerizing and evocative, the abundance of fleeting and radiant
moments is a testament to the beauty inherent in these organic
elements.”
Through a decade of seasons Giovan charted the daily and hourly
permutations of tides, wind, sand, and sky. Her visual record and the images featured in Sand Sea Sky document a
meteorological drama ranging from the threatening and explosive storm to the suffusing sunlight of midday and
incandescent gloaming. In their invitation to become motionless they acquire an affecting intimate immensity that echoes
America’s enduring belief in the transcendent spiritual beauty of nature.
After more than a century and a half of photography, we cannot look at pictures of the natural world with the same
astonishment as did nineteenth-century viewers. While Giovan draws on the landscape traditions of the past, her
response is also informed by an awareness of our precarious relationship to nature, to the environment. These
photographs of this vulnerable landscape invite thoughtful concern about the environmental preservation of special
places that engage our capacity for wonder. A documentation of this unspoiled landscape they serve as a reminder of the
inherently tentative nature of this precious resource.
High Tide Winter 1999.
Rain One Summer 2010.
White Wash Spring 2009.
Green Sea Summer 2003.
Circle Tide Summer 2012.
Building Waves Hurricane Earl Summer 2009.
Break Two Summer 2010.
AM Calm Summer 2010.
Sand Spring 2007.
White Wash with Sand Summer 2009.
Rain Line Summer 2011.
Swoosh Spring 2006.
Green Wave Fall 2007
.
Sand Bar Wave Summer 2006.
Rollers Summer 2008.
August Storm Summer 2008.
Winter Wave 2006.
Dusk Wind Winter 2009.
Spring Storm 2008.
Wave Sky Summer 2007.
