Lifeguard Station 56: A Captivating Visual Diary of Light and Time
My Homage to Monet’s Rouen Cathedral Series
“When anxious, uneasy, and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused.”
— Rainer Maria Rilke
Each morning, I set out on my bicycle, heading west toward the ocean. The ride takes me along the Ballona Creek bike path, past quiet stretches of water where long-legged birds walk, and the occasional rower slices through the stillness. Once I reach the shoreline, I turn south and follow the coast to Lifeguard Station 56—my ritualistic turning point, exactly five miles from home.
When I arrive, I stop. I take in the scene, reach for my phone, and capture an image or two of the lifeguard station with the ocean unfolding behind it. No two photographs are ever the same. The station stands unchanged, but everything around it shifts—the sky, the light, the movement of the waves. Some mornings, the marine layer shrouds it in mist; other times, the early sun casts it in golden hues. The backdrop may be moody and gray, or electric with an infinite, cloudless blue. Even the sand tells its own story, sculpted overnight by unseen hands of wind and tide.
This small, unassuming spot holds a certain serenity, despite being directly beneath the flight path of planes departing LAX. I like the contrast: the vast, calm ocean below, the relentless momentum of human ambition above. I pause here before heading back, letting the moment settle.
A Study in Light and Time
Art history is filled with examples of artists returning to the same subject again and again, but few have explored this as methodically as Claude Monet. His Rouen Cathedral series, a collection of 26 paintings of the same façade at different times of day and in varying weather conditions, is a masterclass in perception. Monet, ever the Impressionist, was not interested in the architecture itself but in how light transformed it. Each brushstroke captured fleeting moments—morning warmth, midday brightness, evening shadows—turning a static structure into something living, breathing, and endlessly evolving.
View: Rouen Cathedral Series (1892-1894) by Claude Monet
Lifeguard Station 56 is my Rouen Cathedral. My ongoing series of photographs is a quiet homage to Monet’s pursuit. I return to this single point on the map, observing how time, light, and season shape its presence. Some days, I sense a kinship with the station—steadfast in the face of change, yet altered by every passing moment.
Reflections on Repetition
Repetition is often misunderstood. It is not redundancy, but refinement. Monet knew this. His work was not about painting the same thing over and over but about seeing deeper, revealing something new each time. In our fast-moving world, we tend to chase novelty, mistaking the unfamiliar for the meaningful. But there is something profound in staying with a subject, revisiting it, studying its subtleties.
Returning to Lifeguard Station 56 each morning is not just about the photographs. It is about noticing—about developing an eye for change, about recognizing that even in what seems familiar, there is always something new to be seen. It reminds me that no two days are identical, just as no two moments of light will ever cast the same shadow.
View of Another Repetition Project: The Stripe Paintings
I don’t recall when it began—this quiet meditation, this personal experiment in seeing. I wonder how many photographs I have taken since then. Hundreds? Thousands? It does not matter. The act itself is what counts. The morning ride, the stop, the shot. And then, the realization that nothing—no wave, no cloud, no breath of air—has ever stood still.
July 2019