Landschap before 1903

This vintage photograph, “Landschap”, was made by Alfred Horsley Hinton, sometime before 1908. It's a small print, just a few inches tall, but it feels so vast. Looking at this, I imagine Hinton out there, squinting into the light, trying to capture the feel of the landscape. What was he thinking, lugging his camera gear through the mud? Did he feel alone? He must have felt a real compulsion to capture something ephemeral. The way the light catches those wispy clouds, or how the reeds and grasses around the river’s edge just seem to shimmer. You can feel the dampness in the air. I think of the darkroom as part of the process, too. I think of him manipulating the chemicals, trying to coax that feeling onto the paper. A quiet, solitary act. But also, an act of communication with the world. I can see his vision as a precursor to the Pictorialist movement in photography, where landscapes are often romantic and suggestive. The legacy continues, it makes me feel that we are all in conversation with artists of the past.