The ocean is an embodiment of serenity and peacefulness, where the boundary of earth and sky exists in the form of a horizontal endlessness. Each ripple, each wave contributes to an immense piece of textured fabrics—moving back and forth in an undulating pattern. That gentleness was captured by artist Hiroshi Sugimoto in his photographic series Seascapes as a meditative experience of minimalism.

Based in Japan, Sugimoto works with the element of time to deal with identity and existence. Through Seascapes, we experience the bodies of water through many decades and locations, where time exists only in our social construction. Escaping that notion, each image is an immersive out-of-body stillness. The rhythm that carried each location to another creates a familiar feeling that holds nostalgia and melancholy in every hue of monochromatic soft light. Contrasts only exist to yield blurry boundaries among landscapes. Like a portrait painter, Sugimoto captures the identity of these seas to reflect our humane existence and the idea of vanishing into thin air, much like the technical perspectives of these photographs.

The simplicity of Seascapes is one that’s haunting yet vivid. Each picture is an ambience of emotions; we see the romance of earth, sky and their mediating line. That harmonisation is what keeps bringing me back to these visuals for hours with a constant thought of my own being amidst the dance of nature.