Altnőder Emese 06 fotó
What is strongest in this photograph is that it seems to be summer, a memory and a technical error all at once. The seaside background alone would be almost ordinary — clouds, water, a strip of shore and distant figures — but the blurred human form drifting into the centre takes the scene out of the category of a straightforward beach photograph. It feels as though someone has partly become caught in the image while walking through it.
The black-and-white tones suit it particularly well. Everything is softer and less certain, giving the scene a slightly haunting yet elegant quality. The figure’s face and body never quite come together; they dissolve into the landscape, as though horizon, movement and identity have briefly become entangled. The photograph evokes rather than documents, and the difference is considerable.
There is something strangely tender about it too. Reality slips away almost imperceptibly, making the image more interesting than a well-caught portrait or an attractive beach scene. It resembles an old feeling returning when you can no longer quite remember whom, when or what it belonged to. Body, landscape and absence are present together.
A picture like this works through leaving its meaning open. You look at it and receive a state of mind rather than an answer. A little unfamiliar, a little nostalgic, a little dreamlike — which is precisely why it stays with you.
Méret: 20 × 20 cm