“…a subtle but important distinction between time and the rock record of time. Geologic time is divided into eons, eras, periods, epochs and ages, and the corresponding rocks into eonothems, erathems, systems, series, and stages.
Time (chronos) could happen without rocks (representing kairos) but not the other way around. However, time vanishes, while rocks persist.”
– from ‘Timefulness’ by Marcia Bjornerud
I’m not sure when my fascination with rocks began. For children, handfuls of stones seem to be a very common thing to seek out and collect. I imagine an adult or two in my life may have also modelled this interest and behaviour while walking the low-tide line at the beach. On camping trips and other family excursions, I recall geological details as being some of the bigger highlights. I can remember feeling awed by the glittering granite boulders of Yosemite, struck by how differently textured and coloured they were from the smooth grey coastal stones closer to home. River stones were especially irresistible, often found in a range of earthy reds, yellows, greens and blues, worn smooth and shimmering beneath flowing water.
In later years, a very persistent theme emerged from my amateur-geologist’s sense of curiosity. The stones and rock formations that I have always found most captivating wear their distinct marks of erosion prominently. Worn grooves, slick sculptural curves, improbably balanced towers, I photograph them with a kind of compulsion, as if I might finally succeed in documenting the passage of time itself.
This set of photographs is from sometime around 2006-2007, collected along the Trinity River in Northern California. I don’t know the film stock, but these colour slide transparencies were part of a recent archival scanning project. I enjoy seeing them uncropped, held in the black frame of the slide mount, showing each composition just as it struck me in the moment while wandering through the riverbed.
As my artistic practice has evolved I have made an effort to learn more about the relationship between time and geology. A sizable portion of my long-term photographic focus has been spent exploring the idea of time made visible, from abstract aerial landscapes to textural close-up studies of rocky environments. The idea that without time, these stones simply wouldn’t exist, opens up some interesting ways of viewing their importance as evidence of time’s impermanence.
My favourite frame from this set is of what I like to call the “worry stone”. Recent rain had left traces of moisture across the rocky riverbed bottom, while the river’s current had dropped away into deeper channels. This particular stone shows several layers of water erosion, a distinct indent carved along one edge, while bumps and sculpted ridges curve around to the top where a rounded, nearly circular form is faintly visible. I have also explored this image in black and white, but I am quite partial to the blue-grey moodiness of the natural colours.
If this stone were small enough, I’m quite sure I would have slipped it into my pocket to bring home and enjoy alongside the other rocks, sea glass, and shells I keep scattered along my windowsills. I enjoy these bits of ephemera as tangible reminders of time’s passage, and they are treasured mementos from places that brought the feeling of being small in the flow of time into focus. Alas, this was a very large rock and it would have been a shame to dislodge it. I like to think that it is still there, possibly worn into an entirely new, smaller shape after twenty more years of water and erosion. As the saying goes, time will tell.
