Mike Vos
Mike Vos
SOMEWHERE IN ANOTHER PLACE
11.4” x 9.5”
linen wrap hardcover
108 pages
Buckman Journal
About the Book:
Mike Vos presents a new sort of landscape photography, one for the anthropocene, one that is a practice of both time and place, and one which seeks contextual transcendence by altering what and how we see. Somewhere In Another Place distills more than three years of work and countless miles traveled across the continent into 49 double exposure photographs which represent nearly 100 distinct locations. We are invited into a procession of carefully invented places, to witness their visual echoes, to see their waters mirror ancient shapes. Here you’ll find vessels mixed with mountains, waterfalls framed by windows, stalactites crossed with a satellite dish, geologic formations stitched with ephemeral human structures on their way out of existence. Because all imagery is composed, overlaid, and captured manually on a large-format camera, Vos plays an existential tetris of fitting together immersive new terrains and opening a unique plane to consider the mesh of interactions between landscape, the built environment, and the self. With an afterword elaborating on his process and a reading list of literature which inspired the series, to experience this book is to join Vos on his journeys, to explore and behold as you never have.
Book review by Dana Stirling |
Landscape photography has long held a significant place in art, capturing not only the beauty of the natural world but also our evolving relationship with it. Traditionally, it serves as a way to document vast and untouched wilderness, preserving scenes of grandeur for generations to witness. However, today It no longer merely documents; it interrogates and reflects our impact on the land, offering a space to consider environmental degradation, urban expansion, and the delicate balance between human existence and the natural world.
In Somewhere in Another Place, Mike Vos uses the technique of double exposure to deepen this conversation. Double exposure, which involves overlaying two images on a single frame, is a powerful tool for visual storytelling, allowing disparate scenes to coexist in a single moment. Vos’s use of this method adds layers of meaning to his landscapes, blending natural and man-made environments in ways that evoke both harmony and discord. By manually composing these exposures, Vos creates a dialogue between the organic and the constructed, reminding us of how intertwined—and fragile—these relationships are. His approach challenges the viewer to see beyond the surface of a traditional landscape, pushing the boundaries of the genre and offering a fresh, contemplative take on our place in the world.
The book offers viewers a journey through "invented places"—where waterfalls are framed by windows, stalactites meet satellite dishes, and ancient mountains merge with vessels. These deliberate juxtapositions remind us of our complicated relationship with the land: how we shape and alter it, but also how it persists beneath our interventions. In Vos’s hands, landscape photography becomes more than a static depiction; it becomes an exploration of the tension between nature and the built environment.
Mike Vos’s use of double exposure in Somewhere in Another Place not only enhances the visual complexity of the landscapes but also introduces elements reminiscent of painting . By blending multiple exposures into a single frame, Vos creates compositions that defy traditional photographic expectations. The images evoke a painterly quality—layered, textured, and often surreal—where natural elements merge with human structures in ways that challenge our perception of reality. In this way, the artist constructs a vision that transcends direct representation, instead inviting viewers into a realm of imagination and interpretation.
Double exposure inherently plays with illusion, distorting our sense of time, space, and place. The images are no longer straightforward documents of the world as it is but rather altered visions of what it could be. Vos's photographs invite the viewer to question the idea of photography as a "document of truth"—a concept historically rooted in the medium's ability to capture an objective reality. In these images, however, truth becomes fluid. The landscapes are invented, layered, and manipulated, suggesting that reality itself is constructed and malleable, shaped by perception, memory, and the stories we impose on the world around us.
Somewhere in Another Place is more than a collection of beautiful images; it is a meditation on time, place, and the ever-changing landscape of our planet. Through his manual approach, Vos opens a unique space to consider the interactions between self, land, and human-made structures, presenting a visual narrative that resonates on both a personal and ecological level.
