Sarah Taylor captures a beautiful merging of opposing forces in her photo “Thundering Silence.” The oxymoronic title directly references one such example. No animals or objects lay amongst the beach that the mind almost subconsciously associates with a sound. It creates an eerie silence that almost hides the one prominent mental sound, the crashing waves. The picture brings that solo sound to mind, yet its repetitive nature blends it in very well with the scene. Waves contradict more than the silence, however. [what ... i'm really confused by this paragraph. While very poetic, the language here leaves me questioning what you are talking about. Is it a photo? (then why all the discussion of sound?)]

“Thundering Silence” brings together energetic life with complete stillness. The only signs of life within the photograph are the blurred outline of two birds perched upon the dock. No footprints disrupt the sand, and the benches looking out upon the ocean lay vacated. The lack of activity brings upon a feeling of peace and serenity. Once again, however, the waves oppose a complete stillness from dominating the shot. The waves appear to dully roll out onto the sand, yet the energy and reserved strength of the water stand out against the frailness of the pier. The water itself is also the opposite of land, which “Thundering Silence” depicts them meeting upon the sandy beach. The contradictions extend beyond natural opposing forces, however.

The pier makes apparent the battle of man versus nature. While the majority of the photo’s elements formed naturally, the pier and the buoys exist as signs of human development. The pier stands out as mankind’s attempt to work around nature’s barriers, and connect land and sea. It stands only at the mercy of the water, yet it also acts a hypothetical bridge between man and nature. The pier in “Thundering Silence” is easily identifiable as being constructed out of wood. Thus, it appears as much a part of nature as product of humans. Taylor’s photo derives its quality from more than the opposing forces blending together, however.

“Thundering Silence” contains a rare mixture of spontaneous elements that supported the picture’s theme. Taylor could not control the dismal overcast that emphasizes the dreary stillness of the photo. The timing of the photo to not include any terrestrial or aquatic life contributes likewise. A single, easily identifiable boat or creature may not degrade from the picture’s beauty; however, it would undermine the entire theme, and possibly alter the focus completely. While many of the features came together by chance, not all of them lay outside Taylor’s control.

Many aspects of the snapshot depend upon Taylor’s approach to the picture. The excellent timing of “Thundering Silence” portrays the water still receding instead of at its apex upon the sand. The two opposing elements, land and water, are thus blended together in the wet sand, rather than definitively separated. Taylor fails to show the pier connecting the land and water, although it is obvious the other end begins on the beach. Additionally, by not revealing the pier’s link to the land, it appears significantly more fragile and susceptible to any tempest of the ocean. Overall, Taylor’s approach to “Thundering Silence” contains only one major flaw: the photo should have been taken such that it did not show the green buoy. The red and green buoys together detract from the sullen color scheme that helps establishes the theme. The red buoy by itself, however, would enhance the emptiness of life vital to the photograph’s atmosphere. Additional factors that would typically limit the quality of a photo ironically improved “Thundering Silence.”

Taylor used a mainstream, non-commercial digital camera to take “Thundering Silence.” The number of mega-pixels and the lens quality fall short of a commercial, or even a high-end digital camera. Zooming in on any part of the photo exemplifies this point. The slightly fuzzy background likewise makes the limited quality apparent, although it enhances the overall photograph. The blurriness of the buoys, for instance, dampens their color as well as further develops the overcast skies. The level of detail of the water and the wave closest to the beach could be increased significantly. The shot contains enough realism to mentally trigger the sound of waves crashing, but not nearly enough to make a person think for a split second that he or she could reach in and touch the water. The overall detail, however, easily portrays Taylor’s intended theme.

“Thundering Silence” smoothly melds several opposing forces together in a manner visually pleasing to the eye and mind. The result is a photo whose serenity easily transfers over to the viewer. Its peacefulness makes “Thundering Silence” perfect to break the general chaos at home or in the office, whether it is in a frame or the background of the computer.

[Wow ... this is great. The first paragraph, though, is a complete disaster. It's a bit too mysterious and highly confusing. That said ... once this gets rolling ... good grief. Seriously, great work.]

http://img485.imageshack.us/img485/1305/dscn00296dv.jpg∞