“The narrow abyss” is a phrase coined by writer John Berger, meant to describe the paradoxical divide between human and animal life, and more pointedly, death. That is to say, though we as humans share mortality with other animals, there is still a metaphorical crevasse separating our experiences. Photographer Elaine Bezold, in her series by the same title, shows us moments wherein humans and animals share qualities of fragility and impermanence, entering each other’s experience and bridging the narrow abyss. More than simple documentation of nature, Bezold’s images are composed and reverent, with evidence of the artist’s hand reinforcing the dissonance between natural and unnatural, wild and calm, beauty and loss.
