Natuurgezicht van een vakantie van de familie Wachenheimer, augustus 1932, Eibsee (Beieren) 1932 - 1938

This is a holiday snapshot, taken by the Wachenheimer family at Eibsee, Bavaria, in August 1932. The image is a landscape, but it’s also an object, mounted on a dark page. The photograph itself has a serrated border. It’s a double image, a captured vista within a carefully arranged album page. I really like how the greyscale of the photograph is set against the dark background. The tones of the trees and the water almost mirror those of the album page. It’s a muted scene, all greys and browns, but the texture in the trees is really amazing. Look how those fine needles give depth to the forest! I find this scene very relatable. It reminds me of some of my own snapshots of scenery or landscapes when I am on vacation, trying to capture a moment, but also knowing it can never be the same. Like the work of Gerhard Richter, this album page reminds us that a photo is always an interpretation, a layer of removal from ‘reality’. It’s not just a scene but a thought about a scene, something to be looked at again, sometime later.