On the beach

There is a photograph by Man Ray entitled Explosante fixe. This image, of an ice cube abandoned on a beach of black volcanic sand, derives its entire power from the absence of a reference point, from the impossibility for the eye and the mind to cling to any scale. This absence liberates, or makes the fall and impact of an asteroid appear, a kind of implosion of metal or water. The gaze is the true purpose of photography.