Cortina d'Ampezzo, gezien vanaf een berghelling op 1700 meter hoogte 1916

Henri de Rothschild captured this view of Cortina d'Ampezzo from a mountain slope at 1700 meters, using a camera sometime in the early 20th century, and what strikes me is the way the monochrome palette kind of flattens everything, turning a vast landscape into a series of tones. It is like a pencil drawing. The textures of the snow-laden mountains and the clustered buildings below become almost abstract patterns. I keep coming back to the church spire, a dark vertical punctuating the scene, anchoring the town amidst the sprawling mountain. There’s a softness to the image, a kind of hazy focus that softens the distinction between foreground and background. It reminds me a little bit of some of Gerhard Richter’s landscapes, where photo-based imagery is deliberately blurred. Rothschild’s image shares this ambiguity, where representation and abstraction meet. Ultimately it reminds us that photographs aren't just documents, but interpretations, playing with how we see and feel a place.