['East Coast-"Hole in the wall"', 'Bird Island-Near Port Elizabeth'] before 1880

Here we have two photographs by Sam Alexander. The dimensions for these gelatin silver prints are 290mm in height and 219mm in width. The dominant visual experience is one of stark contrast. Both images present a scene where the land meets the water. In the upper left, a figure stands atop a dark, craggy cliff overlooking a body of water with what looks like an opening in the cliffside. The lower left image captures a shoreline teeming with birds, the textured foreground contrasting with the smooth expanse of the sea. Alexander’s use of composition and contrast evokes a sense of the sublime, where the power of nature is on full display. The high vantage point, especially in "East Coast-Hole in the wall," engages with a traditional Romantic trope of man dwarfed by nature’s grandeur. It’s also tempting to see, through the lens of structuralism, the shoreline as a semiotic system, with the birds acting as individual units forming a larger, unified structure. Ultimately, these images invite us to reflect on our place within the natural world, a theme that continues to resonate across different cultural and philosophical discourses.