Zuid-Afrikaanse mensen bewerken een land, vermoedelijk op de boerderij van Willem van den Berg in Transvaal, Zuid-Afrika 1967 - 1971

This image by Willem Jacob van den Berg captures South Africans working the land, presumably on Willem van den Berg's farm in Transvaal, South Africa. It makes me think about the act of capturing an image and the artist's hand in deciding how to depict this landscape. What was van den Berg thinking when they made this? What did they want to focus on? Did they ask them to pose, or were they interested in capturing them in the act of working? I like how he uses light to shape and emphasize the workers in the open land. The surface is very still, but the image tells its story through the figures, as their gestures communicate a feeling. It reminds me that artists are in ongoing conversations, exchanging ideas and inspiring one another, even across time. Painting, like photography, is a form of embodied expression, embracing ambiguity and uncertainty.