Point Lobos Rock, 1970
Vintage gelatin silver print
Image: 7 ¼ × 7 ⅜ inches
Mount: 13 ¼ × 15 inches
Signed on mount
July 20, 2026
Our eyes follow the pathways of water in this photograph, along intertidal channels that collect in shell-lined tide pools. Wynn Bullock, like his lifelong friend Edward Weston, had a profound engagement with the elegant forms found in nature. Bullock was also strongly influenced by European modernists and, like his contemporary Aaron Siskind, embraced the experimental aspects of modernist photography for expressive ends. Bullock noted that in his work he sought to depict "dynamic events" rather than objects, and there is the sense here of forces that could be working at scales from the microscopic to the galactic. Bullock’s work seems to flow from an animistic view of the world, where everything feels infused with a soulful mysticism. As such, his photography could be seen as the culmination of a uniquely West Coast branch of modernist photography.
