Nachtcactus in Shewasaulu, Zuid-Afrika 1967

These photographs of a night cactus in Shewasaulu, South Africa, were pasted by Willem Jacob van den Berg into a scrapbook. The images are small and square-ish, arranged on a blue page, capturing the cactus in various moments of bloom. It's like a little scientific study, but softened by the personal touch of the scrapbook format. You can tell there's a real fascination with the plant, a desire to document its ephemeral beauty. The colours are muted, faded a bit by time. The background is a tangle of green and brown, blurring into abstraction, while the cactus flower itself is a burst of pale yellow and white. It’s the contrast between the wild, overgrown surroundings and the delicate flower that really grabs me. Each bloom seems to explode from the frame, suggesting artists like Karl Blossfeldt, who found ways to photograph plants in new ways. It feels both intentional and accidental, a beautiful record of a fleeting moment, and a lasting memento of a life dedicated to capturing the world's strangeness.