Oversteek van de Haukeliseterpas before 1893

Curator: This gelatin silver print, "Oversteek van de Haukeliseterpas," taken by Paul Lange sometime before 1893, whispers of a bygone era. A cluster of figures, small against the vast, snow-covered landscape, attempts to cross a mountain pass. What does it stir in you? Editor: Isolation, definitely. That wash of pale, muted color only amplifies it. There's something so lonely and stoic about this little band trekking across the snow. They look determined, but also incredibly vulnerable against that expanse. Curator: It's quite poignant, isn't it? Looking at this now, a good century and some change after it was made, what really grabs me is thinking about the social context in which Lange was working. Photography back then was very much tied to exploration and documentation. It reflects a broader European impulse to chart and classify the world. Editor: Absolutely. There’s almost a clinical gaze to it, wouldn’t you agree? Less romantic, more reportage. The people in this photo seem less like individuals on an adventure and more like specimens in an environmental study. It also speaks to the inherent class dynamics of expeditions from that period— the labor, the unseen efforts needed to execute a grand undertaking... It's etched in their weary postures, don't you think? Curator: You've struck on something vital. Look at how small Lange has rendered the human figure in relation to the terrain. It shrinks them to insignificance. Does it reflect a reverence for nature or simply acknowledge an objective truth, I wonder? Perhaps Lange even used the perspective to make a social commentary about people in difficult times? We see here how powerful visual framing can be in subtly underlining social forces. Editor: A bit of both, maybe? Nature writing and nature photography in that period had a way of holding those tensions, didn't they? It does beg a broader discussion on who got to make the photos, and who were lugging the equipment. But that is, ultimately, what draws me back into the stark and haunting vision presented in the piece. Curator: It makes you ponder just how our perceptions can shape understanding, especially as we engage with something as historically distant as this photographic encounter. Editor: Exactly. And in turn, this old print reminds us to view what we see with more questioning.