Every month for a year, Thomas Lohr made a pilgrimage to Ayrmer Cove in Devon, England. There, below the steep, pasture-topped cliffs, is a natural obelisk of slate reaching out of the Atlantic Ocean. The stone, slick with Channel waters, shivers in sunny hours as if it were an abandoned sundial or forgotten idol. Beach-goers, dog-walkers, residents from nearby Ringmore parish shrug when asked about it: “What Rock?” And so Lohr, encouraged by local indifference, started making monthly visits to establish a relationship with the neglected sight.
Gezeiten documents the photographer’s courtship of the stone and his attempt to uncover more of it with his camera. The rock, whose color and aspect change along with the season and light, weather and tide, transforms over the duration of a year. The influence of the tide—Gezeiten in Lohr’s native German—plays the most regular and dramatic role, robing and disrobing its base in sands and water. Each print of Gezeiten features a numerical stamp, indicating the date, time, and tidal height for each image. The ambitious viewer is invited to use this index to match the stone’s many faces with its environment.
Book
Gezeiten
Self published, 2019
Art Direction & Book Design Heiko Keinath @ Buero Paris
Text Adriano Sack
Printing Marcel Meesters @ MM Artbook Printing
This is the story of a private ritual that photographer Thomas Lohr performed every month for a year of his life. Each week he made a pilgrimage to Ayrmer Cove on the pure shores of Devon to observe, admire, and photograph a rock jutting out of the ocean. Lohr developed a close relationship to the stone, capturing its many moods and miens with his camera. The result is this book, somewhat teutonically called, Gezeiten [Tides].
Gezeiten manages to be both modest and absolutely megalomaniac at the same time. The subject is just a stone, photographed from nearly the same angle at different times of day throughout one year. But its majestic, eternal beauty might also be regarded as a proof of God—if ever there was any.
The references implied here are endless: white shark, sinking Titanic, ob- jectophilia, Caspar David Friedrich’s Wrack im Eismeer, Bernd and Hilla Becher’s portraits of industrial ruins, the Kaaba of Mecca, and of course, Stanley Kubrick’s black monolith from 2001—the golden calf of modernism.
For Lohr, however, the project was also a chance to find himself. A mash-up of creativity and self-help can often be toxic—or else just bad art. But not in this case : Gezeiten is a considered work of serial photography.
How did you discover the rock?
A few years ago, on the way to the Devon, a friend named Paula told me about a strange rock she had discovered; there was something special about it, she said. I don’t know if I noticed anything extraordinary about the rock that first time I saw it, but we photographed it that day. About a year later, I was looking at the photograph again (which is the first photo of this book), and felt like I had to get to know it better.
What were you looking for?
For a place where I could be alone and readjust my thoughts. I travel a lot, and I’m constantly surrounded by people, so I never really have the time to sit alone and contemplate. I ended up sitting in front of the rock for nearly 200 hours over the course of that year. It turned out to be a very important experience in my life.
What is the coastline and the surrounding landscape like?
The coast is made up of high cliffs, empty beaches, and rocky coves. The cliffs are covered with grass and bush, and, except for the herds of grazing sheep and cows, they’re mostly inhabited. Moving inland, you’re surrounded by farmland and pasture; the country roads are narrow and flanked by hedgerows picture-book England, you could say.
How did the project begin?
Just by going out one weekend to see the rock again and explore its surroundings. By the time I’d returned to London, I already had ten images that seemed interesting. Something about the experience made me want to return immediately. After that, I went to see the rock almost every month for the next year. Each time I made the trip, I felt less and less like I was photographing a seascape or an object, and more and more like I was shooting a portrait the rock revealing different aspects of its face, of its character and personality. Its mood seemed to change along with the light, the weather, the seasons maybe it changed in response to my own mood. There’s an ancient belief called Animism, which attributes a soul or vital essence to everything to animals, to trees, to clouds and rivers, and also to rocks. I don’t know if this rock has a soul; but I’m no longer certain that it doesn’t.
Why do you think you kept coming back?
In a way, coming to see the rock became my own private form of worship. I decided to go on my own because I had the feeling that any company would disrupt the connection between the two of us. I was also fascinated by the relationship between the tides and the rock. The tides have been coming and going for hundreds of thousands of years, the world has changed, but the rock itself has been the same for a very long time. It might have been in that same place when the Romans conquered the island; it was there much later when pirates lured passing ships into the cliffs with lights; it was there when the Germans crossed the channel to bomb London. But maybe it won’t be there much longer. Future generations may not be able to sit in front of it anymore if sea levels rise. The rock may soon be hidden underwater.
Do you see yourself in the tradition of German Romanticism with this project?
The project definitely has a Romantic strain even though the way I approached the photography owes more to the rigour of Bernd and Hilla Becher.
Could you describe the rock a little bit?
It’s about two meters high, five meters long, and about a meter wide at its base. It’s part of a rockbed that you can only see when the waves have washed the sand away; when that’s not visible, it looks like it might fall over at any minute. The cliffs behind it are a grey, silverish slate some parts even golden or purple. When the rock is wet and reflects the setting sun, it could almost be alive.Â
My first association is a white-shark soaring out of the ocean – monumental-beautiful threat. What do you see?
I saw was the fin of a big white shark swimming underneath the sand. After watching the sun set in different places, from different angles, the rock started to seem like a massive sundial casting its long shadow over the beach. It was like a fixed axis as if the sun, the waves, and the rest of the world was circling around it.
Did you give it a name?
A lot of my friends ask me if the rock has a name, but when I asked the locals who were hiking or walking their dogs around the area, they were puzzled by my question: there are thousands of rocks, why would this one get a name? Somehow I felt they were right, and I decided to keep it that way.
What did you tell hikers passing by?
The second time I went was in January, 2017. It was cold, stormy, and wet. The waves were high, and because of the strong wind, the rain was coming down sideways. I hadn’t seen anyone at the beach for two days, and I was already completely soaked, so before I left I decided to wade into the water, fully dressed, to get closer to the rock. After twenty minutes in the sea, I’d had enough, and hiked the fifteen minutes back to the car. When I arrived, I was greeted by two police cars. A local man had called them, trying to stop some crazy person in the water from attempting suicide. Once I’d explained the project to them, they really thought I was crazy and wanted to take me to the station.The next time I came, I decided to wear waders so that I’d look more professional and less suicidal. The waves were high again, but I felt good in the water. I must’ve underestimated their strength, because a wave threw me against a rock. I was pulled completely underwater, managing only to keep the camera above the surface. When I came back out of the water, a local dog walker looked at me confused, but also a bit amused. I wonder if he was the one who’d called the police on me.
How did you spend all those hours in front of the rock?
I had breakfast, lunch, and dinner there. I went swimming and hiking. I didn’t stay the night because it’s forbidden to camp on the beach, but I often slept in the afternoon. One time I met a survival group that had permission to camp by the rock for three days. They were only permitted to eat grass and snails, and seemed to envy me for the sandwiches I’d brought along.
Some of my friends asked if I had sex with the rock. Of course I didn’t. I am in a relationship.
How did you know when the project was completed?
I wanted to spend exactly a year with the rock, and that’s what I did.
Video
Publication
ZEIT MAGAZINE (03/2020)
