John Pfahl’s witty work exposes an essential truth of photography—the
medium collapses a three-dimensional world within the two dimensions of an
image. Pfahl takes advantage of photography’s spatial compression, constructing
compositions for the camera’s singular point of view. Here, two small strips of
lace were arranged on a cliff high above the waves, but through Pfahl’s camera
lens the space was collapsed. This visual pun exposes the similarity between
the white crested water and the delicate lace trim, while the title plays on the linguistic similarity
between these diverse objects.