The Italian chemist Primo Levi wrote: “the sea’s only gifts are harsh blows and, occasionally, the chance to feel strong. Now, I don’t know much about the sea, but I do know that that’s the way it is here. And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong, to measure yourself at least once, to find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions, facing blind, deaf stone alone, with nothing to help you but your own hands and your own head…” Levi knew what it felt like to stand on the shore of the sea and feel its immensity, and how standing on the precipice of something more vast and powerful than we are is central to the human experience. Have you ever seen a water drop in slow motion? Water Louie’s movies and will see how something so small can create such incredible wonder.
Oceans make up 75% of the Earth’s surface. The amount of land-covered surface to water-covered, one could argue, is insignificant in comparison. As humans we are smaller than the land and the oceans, therefore measuring the immensity of each seems a challenging task.
Louie Schwartzberg is a storyteller and filmmaker who has been shooting time-lapse photography of nature, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, non-stop. His work compresses time and puts you in sync with different forms of life within our interconnected world.
His work makes the invisible visible.
Louie’s lens slows down the movement of the vast ocean, placing it in context against the shoreline, showing the way the ocean spray bounces off the rocky objects that it carves and reforms daily. His camera places the viewer squarely in the center of this experience.
Louie’s work gives us a new perspective on the ocean, the power of waves, and the immensity of the world around us. In a sense, Louie’s work helps us better understand our own humanity by placing us within the context of the enormity of the universe.
What do you think of seeing Louie’s incredible work of capturing a water drop in slow motion?