Landscape photographs are normally full of information about the location, horizon, scale, distances and perspective of the landscape. Not so with the photographs of Frank van der Salm(born in Delft in 1964).

Here, Here, the viewer is left with countless questions rather than answers. Through the manipulative potential of his technique in taking the picture, the usual gauges found in the photograph are rendered utterly useless. In particular, it is hard to estimate the scale of what it is that has been photographed. Are we talking about a mountain, or indeed, a maquette? There is no focal point, because so much of the subject is out of focus, and Van der Salm’s very effective framing also means that one cannot always deduce a context. With this technique, the subject is manipulated until it has evolved into a complicated and disorientating new image. In our day of trends and commerce, with its excess of visual stimuli and multimedia communications, Van der Salm has availed himself of a tremendous pleasure in the creation of images and perceptions of reality. He moreover does so without critical or political undertones. His preoccupation with a changing society seems sooner to have been born of a sincere fascination with the new developments.

Sprache: English