Tapuit bij zijn nestholte 1900 - 1930

Richard Tepe made this photograph of a Wheatear by its burrow at an unrecorded date with a camera and photographic materials. The limited sepia palette feels so natural, so organic, like the scene itself has been imprinted directly onto the paper. This is part of what I find so fascinating about early photography, its indexical relationship to the world. The texture of the earth around the burrow is palpable, you can almost feel the grit and dryness of it. Look at the way the bird is perched, so alert and watchful, but also perfectly still. It’s like a dance between action and inaction, a moment of poised tension. It brings to mind the work of someone like August Sander, who aimed to create a kind of social portraiture through photography. Like Sander, Tepe seems interested in capturing a specific type, but here it is a bird rather than a person. Both artists share that impulse to document the world around them with a kind of detached precision.