Images of unphotographability - by Rob Horning

Sometimes when I am standing on the beach, staring out at the ocean, watching waves roll in, I will become moved with an inarticulate sense of the sublimity of it all, and then, if I have my phone with me, I will take a picture like the one above. It’s not that I think there is anything especially photogenic about the moment; the sublime is sublime because it exceeds representation, defies it, confronts our puny understandings with phenomena we can’t fully assimilate. It’s more that I want a way to punctuate my contemplation and bring something that I sense should be limitless and eternal — awe in the face of the natural forces that exceed this world — to a tidy conclusion. Once I take the photo, I can pretend that it will go on meditating on the infinite while I switch over to check my fantasy baseball stats. Since photography is no longer constrained by the material limits of film, the act of taking pictures seems liberated from documentary purposes. They are not saved for special oc

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• Graciela Smet