Sporen in de sneeuw 1910 - 1911

William Boyd Post made "Sporen in de sneeuw" – meaning "Tracks in the Snow" – a photograph in 1919. The cool, almost monochrome palette makes me think about artmaking as a process of reduction, distilling a scene to its barest essence. There’s such a quietness to this photograph, a stillness emphasized by the blanket of snow and the way the light filters through the trees. The tracks in the snow lead our eye into the distance, but it’s the texture of the snow itself that really grabs me, you can almost feel the crispness and the cold. Look at how Post captured the subtle variations in tone and depth. It reminds me of some of the early modernist landscape painters, like Mondrian, who were also trying to capture the essence of nature through abstraction. Ultimately, art is about seeing the world in new ways, and this photograph invites us to slow down, to observe, and to appreciate the quiet beauty all around us.