Vloot schepen van de Kriegsmarine 1940 - 1943

This vintage photograph of Kriegsmarine ships is a small, grainy portal into a slice of naval history, and its anonymous creation gives it a kind of everyman quality. I find myself thinking about the photographer, trying to imagine what it might have been like to be on that ship, or on a nearby vessel, capturing the fleet. What were they thinking about as they raised the camera? What's their relationship to these ships? The texture of the waves, the way the light hits the water – these are all fleeting moments frozen in time. There’s a sense of distance from the people, the ships appearing small against the vast, undifferentiated sky. I love the contrast between the precision of the naval formation and the unpredictable nature of the sea. It reminds me that artists, like photographers, are always grappling with how to impose order on chaos.