Title: "Seeking Refuge"
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It wasn't an easy decision to make this photograph. I don't know how this shell came to be on top of the rock at the water's edge, but it most likely was placed there by someone. It's a composition that is too facile to create one's self by picking up shell, putting it on top of rock or placing it somewhere else to make a nice "still life" on the beach. Edward Weston made a somewhat infamous image "Shell and Rock Arrangement", where he placed a large shell within a natural rock bowl on Point Lobos to create a composition. He was severely criticized in some quarters for doing so, although he did not perceive a problem with what he had done - simply used the outdoors as a still life studio.
So my hesitation was borne of the concern that the photograph would look too contrived, and it would be inferred that I had "created" this arrangement. But in the end I could see some possibilities for deepening the tone of the rock and holding the creamy tones of the shell in the final image.
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