The same image is never the same

Helping remember what an amazing place this is.

Jun 10, 2021

Claude Monet would obsess on subjects and paint them over and over, or maybe better put, he obsessed with the way light changes the same subject and tried to capture those subtleties over and over.

He made 30 paintings of haystacks in the French countryside at Giverny over two years, then another 30 of a cathedral in Rouen.

Picasso and his obsession with bulls became a different repetition. He’d often begin realistically, then reduce form to the most fundamental lines he could conjure. I heard he said once that if someone were to trace his steps through the course of a typical day, and then look at the pattern created behind him, his movements would form the shape of a bull.

Speaking of bull, why am I talking about a French and Spanish painter in the Cape Cod Voice substack? Well, I ain’t no Monet and I ain’t no Picasso, but Cape Cod’s subtle landscape makes me wish I was. My only recourse is to admire, try to appreciate, and take photos.

What follows is a series shot from the same place, years or days apart, overlooking creek and tide at Uncle Tim’s Bridge in Wellfleet. I take them to help me remember what an amazing place this is. Maybe they might work for you too.