Britse soldaten en gevangengenomen Afrikanen poseren nabij een legerkamp in de buurt van Slingersfontein Possibly 1900 - 1916

This anonymous stereograph shows British soldiers and captured Africans near Slingersfontein. The sepia tone gives the whole image a kind of hazy sameness. When everything is one color, you start to notice the subtle differences in texture and light. Look at the way the figures are arranged. There’s a clear division between the soldiers and the captured Africans, but also a strange sense of formality, like a staged tableau. The soldiers stand tall with their weaponry, while the Africans are grouped together, their faces turned away or obscured by shadow. But it’s the landscape that really gets me. The vast expanse of the African veldt stretches out behind them, punctuated by those neat rows of tents, like a grid imposed on the natural world. It reminds me of the painter Fairfield Porter, who had a similar way of flattening space to convey a feeling of distance and unease. It's a good reminder that art and seeing are really about finding what you feel.