Lake Superior, Cascade River

Hiroshi Sugimoto is widely celebrated for photographs that explore time, space, and perception. Sugimoto began photographing bodies of water with a large-format camera in 1980, resulting in the Seascapes series, which continues to this day. Although his fascination with the subject has spanned decades, his aim remains to “capture the sea as if it were being seen for the first time.” For each body of water he visits, he makes multiple images reflecting varying times of day, shutter speeds, lengths of exposure, and atmospheric conditions. The spareness of this nocturnal image—with a barely visible horizon line bisecting sea and sky—suggests something at once elemental and eternal. Air and water are vital to life, and the world’s lakes, rivers, and oceans have been essential to the development of trade and other far-reaching human activities. Yet the body of water in this photograph seems untouched by civilization or the vicissitudes of individual lives.