Skelet, gevonden bij archeologische opgravingen te Hongarije 1928

This is a photograph of a skeleton, found during an archeological dig in Hungary, by Jan Lanting. It’s a pretty stark image, all monochrome shades of grey, the kind you find in old textbooks. What gets me is the texture, not just of the bones, but the earth around them. The way the light catches the surface of the soil, you can almost feel the grit. It makes you think about what’s been lost, buried, forgotten. Like, what was it like to unearth this person? This skeleton seems to be lying on its back as if resting, with bent knees. I keep looking at the skull. It’s facing us, but is also somehow turned away, like it’s shy. It reminds me of some of the earlier photographs by someone like Eugène Atget, capturing a fleeting moment in time. Photography can be a really strange medium; this photograph is about capturing something that is uncapturable, lost, or gone.