Earth Stands Still

Tim Parkin

Amateur Photographer who plays with big cameras and film when in between digital photographs.

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Nils Karlson’s photography mines a popular seam of creativity, the liquid horizon. That unearthly split between liquid and gaseous holds a mirror up to light, weather and flow. Many photographers have approached the theme (e.g. Sugimoto, Fabien Baron, etc) and so each instance becomes more of a mirror to the photographer rather than a record of an ephemeral world.

The story of the book is based on the concept of Bardo, as described in The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Bardo can be translated as “intermediate state”, originally describing the state of existence between two earthly lives, a state of transcendence, a concept of existence without beginning or end. Nils’ images progress as time through the liquid light of dawn through the pure blues of the day and, as the tides recede, reveal the setting sun and a fall into the eternal. The sand, rocks, seaweed. The whole forms an allegory for death, transitions, reincarnation - a reflection on life itself.