Photographer – Hiroshi Sugimoto ✔Certified
Seascapes (1980-present) Skill Mastery 🟨+ Creativity🟦: 93%
Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Seascapes is an ongoing photographic series begun in 1980 comprising over 200 black-and-white gelatin silver prints taken at locations worldwide from the Arctic Ocean to the Tasman Sea. Each photograph measures approximately 20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 61 cm) and is shot using a large-format 8×10 view camera with exposures lasting from 30 minutes to three hours. The composition is rigorously consistent: the horizon line bisects each frame exactly in half, with sea below and sky above. No land, no human presence, only water and air. The series explores what Sugimoto calls “time exposed,” using photography as a fossilization of time. The first photograph in the series was Caribbean Sea, Jamaica (1980). One image from the series, Boden Sea, Uttwil (1993), became the cover of U2’s 2009 album No Line on the Horizon.
Here’s how this rating breaks down using the Consistent Multi-Criteria Rubric method:
Technical Skill and Execution (25% of total score): 10/10 = 2.50 points Flawless mastery of large-format photography and traditional darkroom techniques. Sugimoto’s use of long exposures transforms turbulent waves into smooth, misty surfaces while maintaining exceptional tonal range and detail. Perfect technical control over exposure, development, and gelatin silver printing.
Composition and Design (25% of total score): 9/10 = 2.25 points Rigorous minimalist composition with the horizon line precisely centered in every image. The equal division of sea and sky creates perfect visual balance. The elimination of all contextual elements focuses attention entirely on the essential meeting of water and air.
Originality and Creativity (20% of total score): 10/10 = 2.00 points Revolutionary conceptual approach to photography. By photographing the same subject (sea meeting sky) over 200 times across four decades, Sugimoto reveals that repetition creates meaning rather than redundancy. Uses photography to investigate deep time and human consciousness, transforming the medium from documentation into philosophical inquiry.
Color Use and Harmony (15% of total score): 7/10 = 1.05 points Limited color palette due to black-and-white medium. The monochromatic approach serves the conceptual intention, creating timeless quality, but lacks chromatic complexity.
Emotional Impact and Expression (15% of total score): 10/10 = 1.50 points Profound meditative and philosophical impact. Sugimoto describes viewing the sea as visiting his ancestral home, invoking evolutionary memory. The work operates simultaneously as aesthetic object, conceptual investigation, and spiritual meditation on humanity’s primordial origins.
Total: 93%
