Description
Taken by drone, the image embraces Tu Long Bay, the more secretive neighbour of Ha Long Bay, in northern Vietnam. The limestone islets stand out as dark masses against smooth grey water, receding plane after plane until they dissolve into the mist, where a coastline can barely be made out. Black and white accentuates this gradation: dense blacks in the foreground, then a whole range of greys lightening towards the horizon, as in the landscape paintings of East Asia from which the scene seems to descend directly. No sail, no junk distracts the eye; the relief alone organises the space. It is an image of thresholds, taken between water and cloud, where geology appears to float — and where the gaze, with no marker of scale, gently loses the measure of things.
