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![\"DI27i18008\"](\"https:\/\/farm5.staticflickr.com\/4678\/39936287511_7d483655ca_z.jpg\")
<\/a>I’ve been wrangling the notion of capture of ephemerality<\/b> as one of the essences of photography, trying to get beyond the obviousness of the observation to the vital idea beneath the cliche, which involves more than just the apprehension of a moment in the river of Time. It’s in the viewer’s mind (or Mind’s Eye, or is it Eye’s Mind?) that the ephemeral attains its significance, a sort of WYGIWYS (What You Get Is What You See). <\/p>\n
\nThis morning it occurred to me that the viewer may be transfixed<\/b> (in the sense of ‘pierced by’ and ‘brought up short’) by an image, caught by a personal punctum<\/i>, as Barthes names the hook that does the transfixing. Sometimes this transfixion is in fact a transfiction<\/i> (“an aestheticized imagination of translatorial action”), an obvious product of the viewer’s imagination, an instance of pareidolia or apophenia in which the viewer sees<\/b> or perhaps constructs meaningful patterns that are notional<\/b> and may not be seen by others. This happens to me frequently, even incessantly.<\/p>\n
\nHere’s an example, ephemeral because it’s a photograph of rapidly-melting ice:<\/p>\n
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