Oerwoud 1903 - 1910

Hendrik Doijer made this photograph, Oerwoud, sometime between 1863 and 1925. It looks like a jungle, or maybe I should say it feels like a jungle. It's fascinating how photography, like painting, can create a world with tone and texture. What I see here is not just a record, but a mood – a dense, mysterious atmosphere built from layers of grey. Look at the way the light filters through the trees, creating these hazy, almost ghostly patches on the leaves. The light itself feels like another layer of the jungle. The photo reminds me a bit of some of the Hudson River School painters like Frederic Church who were obsessed with rendering the vastness of nature. But where they went for the sublime, Doijer finds something more intimate, like a secret garden only he knows the way to. It’s a reminder that art isn’t just about what we see, but about how we feel when we look.