Sebastian Alten

LANDSCHAFT | LANDSCHAFT collects photos of landscapes that have been shot all across Europe, from the south of Sicily to the north of Norway. Even though they are only loosely interconnected, in my view they share a rather existential approach of grasping the world around us. Looking at nature always makes me feel small. It changes the perception of time and puts our human existence and sorrows into perspective. 

The poem that concludes the series has been stolen from the cycle Feberdikte (Fever Poems) by Norwegian author Knut Hamsun. Since I couldn’t find an English translation, I made one up myself: 

I called and asked the foam of the sea, 
And screamed to forests and moor, 
To stone and storm, to the heaven’s space:
The life into which I was born - 
Have I ever craved it or chosen?
Yet mute remained stone
and the storm
and the space.

My translation might not be perfect, but I do hope that the images will be able to do justice to the existential reflection that was addressed. All of these photos have been taken with a Hasselblad 500C/M analog medium format camera and an 80mm f2.8 T* Zeiss Planar lens on black & white negative film.  www.zum-quadrat.com