Garry Winogrand once said, "I photograph to see how something looks photographed." Like Winogrand, I often wonder how what I see through the viewfinder will translate into a photograph. Standing on the tranquil north shore of the Canadian Maritime province of Prince Edward Island, I set my view camera on its tripod and made a long exposure, contemplating how the sea might be rendered as it rhythmically lapped against the beach.

The resulting image gives the impression that time has stopped; everything seems perpetually fixed in place. That day, as I lingered on the beach, the sky cleared, the wind picked up, and the waves grew. However, for the most part, my memory has been replaced by the image itself; its enduring serenity has persisted for 50 years. The Bay of St. Lawrence appears to bulge slightly, with the light-toned ocean stilled by a brief period of calm along its near shore, while the darker tone just below the horizon depicts a brush of wind.

Sometimes the image is so spare that it could have been made anywhere. But upon closer examination, it features a few subtle characteristics unique to that location. The flat, granular evenness of the beach’s surface is indicative of a shore long worn down to sand and pebbles. Tides change little along this coastline, diminishing the size of waves on the incoming tides. Highlighting the flatness of the Bay of St. Lawrence, particularly along Prince Edward Island’s north shore, prevailing winds blow seaward, revealing an ocean shaded by the wind only where it strikes far offshore.