Optocht NSB 1936 - 1937

Here we have an undated photograph by an anonymous maker, titled "Optocht NSB." It's the scale of this little photograph that gets me. I'm thinking about the artist's hand carefully developing this image, and what it means to create something so delicate, so meticulously rendered, of something so monumental as a political demonstration. It's this push and pull between the intimate and the impersonal that makes the image so unsettling. The photograph itself is black and white, so it's the contrast in tone that really determines the forms in the image. The crispness of the edges of the flag is quite striking, especially against the blur of the background, which creates a sense of depth and movement. It’s easy to imagine the wind catching that flag and the men marching into an unknown future. The power of images like this lies in their ability to capture the complexity of human experience, where historical narratives are always intertwined with individual stories. Like, what became of these guys? This photo is one fragment of a larger conversation about the nature of power, the seduction of ideology, and the role of images in shaping our understanding of the past. It reminds me a bit of Gerhard Richter's photo paintings.