This illusion of narrative structure is reinforced by the titles. Undoubtedly one could ignore them, but most people, when confronted with a picture, want to know what it depicts. The representational character remains present only in the titles whereas the material object denies locating
the photographed object. The representational demand of photography is at the same time made unmasked and annihilated as it exposes it as a simple illusion with far-reaching consequences.
But photographs are not just simply phantasmatic. If photographs were mere fantasies of light and shadow, captions would just be phantoms of real information. It seems, as if Sugimoto wished to make visible this aspect of his work. He could also have called his images "Untitled Seascape", but he did not. The naming words in the titles animate to resonate. Regarding concrete titles as “Rebun Island, Rügen, Aegean Sea, Cascade River,” etc. Sugimoto reinforces our desire for denotation and creates a moment of deprivation knowing that it can never be redeemed.
Again in order to link again Deleuze here we could argue that the philosopher created new terms such as the crystal-image as a reaction to the inconvenience of traditional verbal systems. He created the term to express his idea of an image outside of traditional verbal denotation. Sugimoto resists in the same way to traditional denotation when he gives more value to visual appearance. He is not so much concerned of documentation of the seas but of revealing specific photographic qualities. To make this idea clear, it is interesting to see what Sugimoto said about the desire to do this series: