Gezicht op de Tafelberg in Zuid-Afrika c. 1940 - 1960

This small photograph by Blackshaw captures a view of Table Mountain in South Africa, and feels like a study in grey. The cloud and the rock formations are barely differentiated by the monochrome palette, but the effect is far from dull. I'm really drawn to the surface quality; that grainy, slightly out-of-focus texture which can only come from film. It seems to have a quality of distance, as though looking back in time. And then there’s the mountain, looming large but somehow flattened against the sky. It's a reminder that photography, like painting, is always an interpretation, a flattening of three dimensions into two. There’s an interesting dialogue here between clarity and ambiguity; the sharp focus of the rocks in the foreground dissolving into the hazy outline of the mountain beyond. It reminds me of Gerhard Richter’s blurred photographs, where the act of seeing becomes a kind of abstraction. It’s in these moments of uncertainty that the image really comes alive.