Berglandschap in de Rocky Mountains, Canada 1924 - 1926

This is a photograph by J. Dearden Holmes of a mountain landscape in Canada, probably made with a large format camera if I were to guess. What I like about this image is the mood. It’s not a sunny, bright day. The clouds give it an atmospheric quality, like the light in a Turner painting. There's also something about the textures, the way the dense forest is rendered in a uniform way, which creates a sort of screen or veil between us and the landscape. The water in the foreground is still, almost mirror-like, giving the image a sense of depth and space. It reminds me of some of the early landscape photographers like Carleton Watkins, who were also interested in capturing the grandeur and sublimity of the American West. But Holmes brings a different sensibility to the subject, one that’s more intimate and personal. I think he wants us to experience the landscape not just as a visual spectacle but as a place of feeling and emotion. It shows the ongoing conversations in artmaking across time. Ultimately art thrives on ambiguity, so there's no one right way to see it.