Vier gezichten op Texel, onder andere op Den Hoorn 1931 - 1935

Herman Besselaar made this set of gelatin silver prints of Texel, sometime in the twentieth century. What strikes me most is the texture. There is a rough quality to the prints, like something found rather than made. The limited tonal range also adds to this feeling. It’s like he’s trying to capture the essence of a place through a kind of archeological unearthing. Look at the upper left image, with the small canal cutting through the landscape. There's a kind of starkness to the image, a rawness in the way the landscape is rendered. It reminds me of some of the New Topographics photographers like Lewis Baltz, but with a softer, more personal touch. It embraces ambiguity, suggesting that the true meaning of a place is always just out of reach.