Tabaksveld op het Bindjey Estate van de Deli-Batavia Maatschappij op Sumatra (80 dagen na aanplant) c. 1900 - 1920

This photograph, "Tabaksveld op het Bindjey Estate van de Deli-Batavia Maatschappij op Sumatra (80 dagen na aanplant)" or "Tobacco field on the Bindjey Estate of the Deli-Batavia Company on Sumatra (80 days after planting)", was taken by an anonymous artist. I can almost feel the humidity and the weight of the air, as if the photograph itself is sweating. There's a stillness to it, but it’s the kind of stillness that feels pregnant, like something is about to burst. Imagine being the photographer, setting up the camera in this humid landscape. The light is almost bleached, flattening the leaves into shapes. The perspective is so intriguing, these lines of tobacco plants lead our eyes towards this distant building, like a mirage shimmering in the heat. It's like a theater set, the plants and the figure in the distance become actors on a stage. I'm thinking about the tradition of landscape painting, of artists like Van Gogh painting fields of wheat under a hot sun, and how that relates to this image. Maybe this photographer was thinking about painting too? How images echo and speak to each other across time, each one influencing the next.