Glacier Point, Yosemite National Park, November 2016

Photo by Tim Giller

Ephemerality defines the human experience. Moments peeling away, as a vague onion skin, often hard to separate. At what point does one lapse of time become its own moment distinct from the others, known just long enough for it to be gone, its successor now the present. Much of the beauty of this world is fleeting, perhaps being ephemeral is part of that beauty.

Photographers chase these moments, anticipate them. The camera shutter catches discreet portions, many measured in milliseconds of daylight, others long minutes caught as one image coalesced out of the dark. An easy obsession. Is this the moment? Or is it this next one? When is it that I am pursuing? Does this satisfy a desire to hold the fleeting, make it permanent? If we are seeking a measure of our sensitivity, a measure of our ability to be present and conscious, photography is not it. All photography is a lie. When we know this, we can then discern the rare truths that it might offer.

Few things are as ephemeral as a cloud. Water vapor condensing, evaporating. Wisps formed out of humid realms are blown by breezes, strewn by gales, finding dry landscapes that might devour them. Ensconcing mountaintops and cliffs, mist dances along the hard surfaces, earth, air and water teasing each other. Reminding rock that it too shall have a finite and fluid existence. All these transitory joys of poetry, dance, warm companions, cool gooseflesh. Entwined, temporally embraced, changing, sweeping along and at some point, metamorphosed, finding themselves another thing altogether.