Petrification is a process that always fascinated me. An organic living thing that becomes fossilized. Yet it isn’t something that becomes frozen in time, it is something that becomes an embodiment of time. It may look like this static thing – but the organic structures, over centuries, get replaced by other elements in the surrounding environment. It’s not like everything forms all at once. It becomes a symbol of not just what it was, but all the circumstances that followed its conversion from an organism to something else over millions of years.
When it gets removed from the place where all of this was going on, I suppose only then do the ongoing elemental changes stop – at least for a while. Not too different from the way a photograph stops a moment in time and exists as a recording of that moment. Its permanence, however, remains to be seen. I have doubts these things we call photographs will endure similar geological timescales. Will they last even a fraction of the time of “primitive” recordings like cave paintings? These are the concepts floating around in my head while I was developing this image and ultimately led to a title I thought was fitting.
Yet, this isn’t really a sunset as we often define one. But then the sun isn’t really moving across the sky either, let alone setting. Simply one definition from our anthropogenic defined reality. This tiny recording of millions of years that I hold in my hand is the reality it experienced. I then question who am I to say what it is and isn’t. This small inanimate object has seen more time than I can possibly imagine. On such scales, what I call it is rather insignificant. It is only a momentary token of appreciation until it becomes something else.
The petrified colors are exceptional. I think I’m willing to think of photographs as ephemera – mine, anyway 🙂
The concepts floating around in your head make thought-provoking reading. Your momentary token of appreciation is, too, and it’s quite beautiful. Meaning is malleable. 🙂
That’s all anyone can hope for! Thanks, Lynn.
Another interesting and informative post for me. You do that on a constant basis. When we start to talk in millions of years it’s easy for me to realize just how miniscule our time on this planet is. I am also pleased with the beauty fossilization conversion can take on. Shows how patience pays off. You seem to say things well for me, “It is only a momentary token of appreciation until it becomes something else.”
Thanks Monte. I am a bit short for words and post ideas lately – seems to get harder and harder.
Not petrification, but I recently saw a story about ancient deep-sea bacteria revived after 100 million years dormant. For most of us, we’d consider 100 million years to be permanent, but for this bacteria, perhaps it was but a nap. As a side thought, I have some misgivings about the revival of such ancient organisms less we open “Pandora’s Box.”
I do like this image. I’d imagine one would see something similar while entering orbit around some far-distance planet.
Yeah, the old stuff thawing out concerns me also. Nothing injecting bleach can’t solve though 😉
The issue of ‘permanence’ is particularly questionable when it comes to digital images. I strongly suspect that over time, unless constantly cared for and transferred to the next storage medium they will be lost. Not nearly the permanence of the cave paintings.
Great photo. Interesting how we interpret small sections of a thing and assign to them something we ‘know’.
I suppose it is a hidden benefit to copyright registration – your images get deposited to an archive that will be maintained until the archive gets bombed or overthrown, etc. 🙂
I think psychiatrists / neuroscientists have been studying such things ever since the creation of ink blot tests.