Aanleg spoorweg langs de Sarakreek in Suriname 1905 - 1910

This photograph, "Aanleg spoorweg langs de Sarakreek in Suriname," by Jacob Evert Wesenhagen, captures the building of a railway through the Surinamese landscape. The photograph's muted sepia tones are like an old memory, and that makes you think of the labor involved, the hacking and clearing. You can almost feel the air thick with humidity and the relentless sun beating down. What were the workers thinking as they toiled away, forever altering this landscape? Look at how Wesenhagen frames the scene. Stumps of trees and felled trunks in the foreground establish a brutal contrast with the untouched wilderness in the distance. There's something deeply unsettling about this picture; the human desire for progress versus nature's slow, patient growth. I can't help but feel a pang of guilt, a sense of complicity in this act of transformation. It reminds me of the work of other artists who grapple with the intersection of man and nature. It's a conversation that stretches across time, urging us to consider our place in the world.