Roerdomp op het nest 1900 - 1930

Richard Tepe made this photograph, "Roerdomp op het nest," using gelatin silver print. The tonal range in this photograph, from dark to light, is what grabs me. It feels like a study in observation and care. The nest, a jumble of darks and lights, is sharply in focus, unlike the background of tall grasses. You can really feel the weight of the wet collodion process here: it feels like the image is pulled out of a soup, and the detail is both sharp and dreamy. Take a look at the blurry background. The way the light and shadow are captured makes me think of Symbolist painters and their use of atmosphere to convey mood. Tepe is engaging in the kind of looking, the kind of seeing, that artists like Odilon Redon explored. The effect is poetic and a little spooky, like a dream half-remembered. This feels like such an intimate capture of something usually unseen. What can the image reveal? What can it conceal?