A First Encounter
On the coast of Chile lies Salinas de Pullally, a place that became a personal study of time and quiet transformation.
When I first arrived in 2009, two ponds near the shoreline held something unexpected: tangled fibers spread across the water like torn fabric. The scene looked like the remains of a mattress washed and pushed by the sea against the rocks. It felt unsettling, yet strangely compelling.
I began to imagine a story — the mattress and the pond — an object lost to the ocean and carried to these still waters.
Years of Change
I returned often over the next years. Each visit revealed a softer version of the same place. The fibers thinned, then loosened, and finally disappeared as the sea pulled them apart grain by grain.
Last month, I visited again. Nothing remained.
The ponds held only water, algae, and seaweed. What once looked like a sharp interruption in the landscape had become a calm, natural surface.
The Shape of Disappearance
This slow transformation held its own poetry. What seemed accidental turned into a quiet narrative: fabric giving way to algae, algae opening space for seaweed, and the sea reclaiming its rhythm. The absence felt as powerful as the earlier presence.
A Dialogue With Time
This series is not about discarded fabric. It is about the conversation between what we leave behind and how nature absorbs it.
From wide views of rocks and ponds to close studies of seaweed roots and shifting textures, these images follow more than a decade of watching a landscape evolve.
In Salinas de Pullally, the sea becomes both artist and eraser. It reminds us that time shapes every edge, every trace, and every story we try to hold.
Explore more works at gcs.photo — fine art photography where water, memory, and time become poetic meditation.
