Greenland: a darker shade of white

Review: a Swiss gallery shows Sebastian Copeland's images of the evanescent ice.

Famous for its rail junction, Olten is separated from the settlement of Qaanaaq in northern Greenland by a full thirty degrees of latitude. 

On an unseasonably warm April afternoon, this made the Swiss town an ideal venue for taking in some arctic photography by Sebastian Copeland, one of the genre’s most prominent exponents. Congratulations to IPFO’s Haus der Fotografie for staging this well-curated exhibition in its homely yet spacious gallery.

Space does matter when exhibiting Greenland. The landscape’s scale demands a corresponding expansiveness in print dimensions. And Copeland certainly comes through here. Many of the photos shown at IPFO have previously appeared in his acclaimed book The Arctic: A Darker Shade of White. Yet they surely gain much when viewed on a scale of metres rather than centimetres.

Intriguingly, Copeland opts for the panoramic format in many of his most impressive images. It might be the limitless horizons of polar landscapes that pull so many photographers in this direction. Tiina Itkonen and Stuart D. Klipper, for example, have used wide-format Technorama-type cameras to put together complete collections (thanks, Snowhenge, for introducing these artists). 

Unlike them, Copeland hasn’t gone the whole panoramic hog. A variety of formats was probably better suited to his book. And they work well for the exhibition too. 

In terms of format, he seems to have chosen a conventional portrait or landscape treatment for most of his iceberg studies. Their scale, scope and lighting are almost painterly. 

Entitled “Breakthrough”, one of these images gets a whole gallery wall to itself (above). And rightly so: to my mind, this study invites comparison with works such as Frederic Church’s famous oil of The Icebergs.

Lighting is equally a key element in Copeland’s portraits of Greenlanders. These are presented in a sepia-toned monochrome that was probably not straight out of the camera. 

It’s worth sitting through the accompanying video about “the making of” these images. This shows how Copeland turned an Inuit village's chapel and schoolroom into a makeshift studio, complete with lights and reflectors. Gearheads will note that he used a Canon DSLR with Zeiss lenses.

The technical quality of his images bears witness to Copeland’s background as a commercial photographer before he turned to expeditioning. It stands to reason that skills honed in product or fashion photography can be turned to account when capturing images of icebergs or Greenlanders. This does raise a question, though – what is the product in these circumpolar use cases?

A partial answer comes from the blurb at the exhibition’s entrance. Against the background of the photographer’s face, suitably ice-encrusted, it reads as follows:

For 30 years Sebastian Copeland has been documenting his expeditions and adventures in the form of books, exhibitions, events and films - transforming himself and inspiring the people and organizations that he comes into contact with. He is a climate analyst, award-winning photographer and aspirational athlete and combines these tools to powerfully communicate the urgency of action on climate change and sustainable growth…

Some have queried motivations of this kind, given the carbon output involved in travelling to places like Qaanaaq. But to leave such misgivings aside – I refer you to fellow blogger Snowhenge to give them voice – a more fundamental critique looms. That is, in an age of climate denial, photography just doesn’t seem to be working as a tool to communicate the urgency of action on climate change.

This isn't for the lack of a lengthy history. Landscape photography in Greenland can be traced back, via luminaries and activists such as Ragnar Axelsson and James Balog, for well over a century. Yet, whatever their merits as artists, none of Greenland's many photographers seem to have exerted so much as a milli-erg on actual policymaking.

Does that mean that photographing icebergs is futile? By no means. As the navigator John Davis said, Greenland is “the place of greatest dignitie”. As such, it cries out to be documented. And one day, or rather sooner, we will be grateful for the diligent work of Sebastian Copeland and his peers.

This brings us to the very beginning of colour photography in Greenland, the Swiss scientific expedition of 1912. By good fortune, their legacy is well preserved. Using both hand-tinted glass slides and Autochrome colour prints, the explorers recorded a world that has utterly vanished – whether coastal glaciers, traditional communities or the Greenlanders they portrayed. And their images have the freshness and charm that is reserved for first-comers.

Recent museum displays have shown that individual images from the 1912 expedition can be successfully printed up to Copeland-ish dimensions and even beyond, as seen below at the Swiss National Museum:

And yet, to my knowledge, nobody in the past century has ever staged a pure photography exhibition showing a decent array of these remarkable pictures. 

Should there be any curators out there who find this curious, please get in touch or drop me a comment below. And together we might perhaps have a go at making it happen.

References and further reading

The exhibition of Sebastian Copeland’s Greenland photographs at the IPFO Haus der Fotografie Olten, Switzerland, runs from 11 April to 19 July 2026. 

IPFO stands for the International Photo Festival Olten, a prominent Swiss photography event featuring exhibitions, workshops and lectures. The organization also maintains the Haus der Fotografie (House of Photography), a permanent venue for exhibitions.

Sebastian Copeland, The Arctic: A Darker Shade of White, Rizzoli International Publications, September 2024.

Arctic dreams in Autochrome: How the polar pioneers pursued photography in colour, One Hundred Mountains (this blog).

Alfred de Quervain, Quer durchs Grönlandeis, 1914, available in German in:

Alfred de Quervain, Quer durchs Grönlandeis: Die Expeditionen 1909 und 1912/13, Eingeleitet von Peter Haffner Mit einem Nachwort von Marcel de Quervain Mit Fotos, Verlag Neue Züricher Zeitung, 1998. 

or in English:

Alfred de Quervain, Across Greenland's Ice Cap: The Remarkable Swiss Scientific Expedition of 1912, with an introduction by Martin Hood, Andreas Vieli and Martin Lüthi, McGill-Queen's University Press, May 2022, with more than sixty colour images.

“Mountain photography” (9)

Hints on the art and technique from a practitioner of the nineteen-forties.

Composition: Arrangement, design or composition of the chosen subject within the picture space is very intangible, to say the least. It simply cannot be reduced to rule, except in the widest of terms, and though it is possible to set down a few obvious errors which it is probably desirable to avoid, the successful steering of an arrangement among these pitfalls does not of itself assure success. 

A composite picture in the Chinese manner by Chin San Long, FRPS.
Illustration from Mountain Photography by C Douglas Milner.

There is a definite scheme of formal landscape which has come down to us from the eighteenth century which has the merits of being harmless and necessary, if dull. For the concoction of conventional landscape in terms of foreground, middle distance, background and sky, all neatly divided into thirds or along "lines of beauty", is at least better than no sort of convention at all. The Print Room of the British Museum, and the provincial art galleries (one or two London galleries are provincial in this respect) are full of stiff compositions on these lines, but it is doubtful if much study of them with a view to imitation is very good for anyone.

Fujiyama by H G Ponting,  FRGS, FRPS.
Illustration from Mountain Photography by C Douglas Milner.

Obvious errors of the kind I have mentioned include:

Exact symmetry. The mountain summit, the horizon line, the line of a lake or foreground tree is best kept away from the exact centre lines.

Equal divisions into areas of lake, mountain and sky are generally unpleasant. Lines of interest-roads, etc, with or without figures, tend to distract attention if they are at the extreme edge of a picture, or appear to be moving out of it.

Plain simple tones and lines are the easiest to deal with, a complex subject is not. This simplicity may be helped by the use of a long focus lens, or by choosing a foreground which does not assert itself and compete with the mountain for interest, to the detriment of the unity of the picture.

Figures in the foreground especially need care. If they are too large, they will attract too much attention; if too small, they might just as well not be there for all the help they give.

References

From C Douglas Milner, Mountain Photography: Its Art and Technique in Britain and Abroad, The Focal Press, First printed October 1945, reprinted June 1946.

“Mountain photography” (8)

Hints on the art and technique from a practitioner of the nineteen-forties.

Choice of subject: Many mountains are subjects of inherent beauty and dramatic quality and have strong personalities of their own with which the photographer cannot compete.

The Matterhorn by H G Ponting, FRGS, FRPS.

Illustration from Mountain Photography by C Douglas Milner.

Any attempt to express one's personality in a picture of, say, the MATTERHORN, is almost certain to result in a victory for the MATTERHORN. As CHARLES SIMPSON, R.I., says: "Subjects whose nature ensures a certain impressiveness as pictures ... mountains, lakes and scenic landscapes on the grand scale, do not afford the same opportunities for artistic paintings or photographs of those of a simpler character whose beauty has to be sought for and studied. Variations on a simple theme are more satisfying than grandiose panoramas."

Perhaps the idea worth aiming at may be conveyed in three imaginary comments by an observer of three mountain photographs, each of the WEISSHORN.

"I remember when we were caught in a storm on that."

The right comment for a record photograph. The mind of the observer has not been arrested by the surface of the print, but has passed on to the mountain itself, recognised it, and without any more consideration has recalled something from his memory.

"It's amazing how they get their cows up those slopes . . . Is that you standing among them?"

The WEISSHORN is lost at the top (or back) of the picture, whilst the interest has been seized by a group of cows and a man in the foreground. A very typical result of including too much.

"What a beautiful photograph. . . . Is it in the Alps?”

That may represent pictorial success to the photographer. It is recognised as beautiful, it is clearly accepted as a photograph and not an imitation of an etching or mezzotint, yet its subject matter is not a determining factor in appreciation but a mere afterthought.

A Himalayan glacier by F S Smythe.
Illustration from Mountain Photography by C Douglas Milner.

So that to make a first selection of subject matter, avoid scenes which conform to guidebook standards of beauty. Competent records of beauty spots can, indeed should, be made: the Blau-, Grün- or Schwarz-sees of the Continent; the BLEA TARNs at home; but their place is among the other documentary photographs of a district.

Into the same category of the pictorially impossible fall the impressive arrays of mountain summits catalogued at well-known Aussichtspunkte: and a good deal of conventional landscape in the traditional manner. Swiss scenery is especially difficult to handle with any degree of originality. Most valleys offer the mixture "as before". A few chalets, the ranks of pines, the glacier leading to the upper snows, and, finally, the rock buttresses of the distant peak standing crisply into the dark sky. One such photograph serves to ilustrate the type, all others are variations upon the same theme, and a succession of such views easily becomes dull.

References

From C Douglas Milner, Mountain Photography: Its Art and Technique in Britain and Abroad, The Focal Press, First printed October 1945, reprinted June 1946.

“Mountain photography” (7)

Hints on the art and technique from a practitioner of the nineteen-forties.

Pictorial work: The greater part of this book is concerned with the production of competent record photographs. It is probable that a fairly general measure of agreement can be reached as to whether or not any particular print is a sound and straightforward piece of work approaching its aim of giving the observer as natural and realistic a rendering of the scene as possible, or whether it has achieved the limited objective for which it was intended, e.g. the rendering of distant detail, or the recording of exact proportions for the purpose of measurement. 

"Perfection of light and tone": the Biancograt by Andreas Pedrett.
Illustration from Mountain Photography by C Douglas Milner.

When photography aspires to be an artistic medium, differences and difficulties arise, for the camera is not an easy tool with which to secure that freedom of interpretation and personal expression which is supposed to be fundamental to art.

BERTRAM COX, F.R.P.S., puts the case very succinctly: "The photographer who is trying to produce something which shall have more than a transitory interest or value from the aesthetic point of view, might well consider how his position compares with that of the artist. First he has in his medium little or no opportunity for the exercise of any real creative ability. . . . Secondly, the photographer may become a master of his medium but even then its characteristics have been mainly determined by the manufacturer and are to a great extent inflexible. . . . What is left to him as a craftsman is the choice of selection from a variety of methods of arriving at slightly dissimilar results. Selection seems to be the only method by which he can work . . . he must be aware of what makes his selection worthwhile, and must be extremely critical for he has little control over problems of the elimination of the unessential."

Jingling Pot, Kingsdale, Yorkshire by E Simpson.
Illustration from Mountain Photography by C Douglas Milner.

Before looking at mountain country as a hunting ground for good pictures, it is useful to consider what means of selection are at our disposal, and what ideas it is necessary to have in mind in making a choice. A picture, whether it be a painting, a photograph, a woodcut or an etching, is primarily an arrangement of line and tone within a selected space, which aims to be complete within that space and to speak its meaning to the observer in simple terms of tone or line or colour, as the case may be. An oil painting is expected to show something of what artists call the "quality of paint", a watercolour seeks to convey ideas and form in terms of transparent colour laid over white paper, and not to imitate tones of the depth and brilliance possible in oils. Similarly a photograph should conform to its own conventions and will be most acceptable if it confirms that the worker has accepted the discipline of photography and yet created a print which owes as much if not more to the manner of its taking than to subject interest.

References

From C Douglas Milner, Mountain Photography: Its Art and Technique in Britain and Abroad, The Focal Press, First printed October 1945, reprinted June 1946.

“Mountain photography” (6)

Hints on the art and technique from a practitioner of the nineteen-forties.

The middle way: For all ordinary purposes the best position on a mountain is around "half-way up the one opposite". There at least the lens of normal focal length can reach up to the summits and down to the valleys, enabling good use to be made of the picture area, and giving good proportion of upper detail to lower.

Winter in the Tyrol by Paul Wolff.
Illustration from Mountain Photography by C Douglas Milner.

The idea of a half-way position is not a precise one: somewhere above valley level and below summit level is the viewpoint we need. In favourable circumstances a viewpoint only 50 or 100 feet above the valley floor may be enough to open up the foreground so as to give a much better picture than in the valley itself.

A glen in the Cairngorms by G B Kearey FRPS, FIPB.
Illustration from Mountain Photography by C Douglas Milner. 

For instance, it is well worth trying for views just off a road, which always occupies too much of the foreground, and this expedient of moving a little way up the hillside can usefully be adopted. With mountains of moderate height, backed by higher neighbours, something a little lower than half-way may be best, for then the summit can be placed against a background of sky, as the highest point of the picture, whilst if a higher viewpoint is used, the bigger peaks may be a little too prominent.

References

From C Douglas Milner, Mountain Photography: Its Art and Technique in Britain and Abroad, The Focal Press, First printed October 1945, reprinted June 1946.

“Mountain photography” (5)

Hints on the art and technique from a practitioner of the nineteen-forties.

The high viewpoint: Summit views are troubled with an embarrassment of riches. The great panoramas extend on every side. Fold upon fold of the hills, summits innumerable, enter our field of view to confuse the eye and the mind. 

Aiguille de Roc du Grepon and the Dent du Geant.
Photo by C D Milner from his Mountain Photography.

From great heights, the vastness of the scene as a whole reduces the mountain tops to mere detail and all but the nearest peaks are rather like the furrows in tide-washed sand. Everyone who has been to the summit of a mountain takes such photographs or at least buys picture cards of them. And how disappointing they are! In trying to show everything they show nothing.

The ice arete of the Brenva by F S Smythe.
Illustration from Mountain Photography by C Douglas Milner.

There are rare exceptions. Mountains of equal height with the viewpoint do not abate their dignity; from the DENT BLANCHE, the MATTERHORN still soars above its glaciers. In the COOLIN, SGURR DEARG seen from SGURR ALASDAIR still puts a bold front to us, and in Wales SNOWDON towers above the intervening wall of the GLYDERs when we stand on the top of CARNEDD DAFYDD.

But where are the hills that put up such a brave show from the valley? Lost in the moraines perhaps, or hidden in a cloud layer a thousand feet below. In Britain the minor peaks may look like undulations in moorland. CNICHT, occasionally compared by the romantic to the MATTERHORN, only has this appearance from the flats of PORTMADOC, and from SNOWDON it is a little difficult to see "if the grass is at all long". Yes, summit views are unkind to the small hills: the RIFFELHORNS, the LANGDALES and the CNICHTS. Pictorially it is never easy, and frequently impossible, to do much with the wide view of this kind, unless considerable help is given by cloud forms . . . which is quite another matter.

References

From C Douglas Milner, Mountain Photography: Its Art and Technique in Britain and Abroad, The Focal Press, First printed October 1945, reprinted June 1946.

“Mountain photography” (4)

Hints on the art and technique from a practitioner of the nineteen-forties.

Linear perspective: Mountains, even the minor hills of the PENNINE, are so big and usually so distant that impressions of scale and recession can only be assessed by other things, which are associated with distance and size. When there is obvious linear perspective in a scene the lines of a road converging to the horizon, or a similar line along the roofs of houses, we have no difficulty in perceiving distance. Even when the line is not obvious, we easily and subconsciously assess distance from the reduction in apparent size of well-known objects, such as houses, trees and men.

Unidentified waterfall and figure by Christof Croeber.

Illustration from Mountain Photography by C Douglas Milner.

In open mountain country obvious linear perspective is rare. It is occasionally seen in a mild form when rock faces are built in pronounced horizontal strata, as are the towers of the DOLOMITES. The occurrence of well-known objects is more frequent, and can usefully be employed in a photograph to give scale. The placing of a solitary figure in the foreground, however, usually large in relation to the picture space, does not give scale, but rather serves, by accentuating the small area of the distant mountain, to squash it.

On rappel: images by Ernst Baumann.
Illustration from Mountain Photography by C Douglas Milner.

Figures are most satisfactorily employed to give scale to the plane in which they are seen. With lenses of normal angle of view, however, the useful limit within which figures can be introduced to serve this purpose of giving scale, is easily reached. At 240 yards a man's figure would occupy only half a degree of arc, in a photograph covering perhaps 40 or 50 degrees, and thus would be so insignificant a part of the picture that he would be in danger of being overlooked, even if his outline were clearly recorded by the lens. 

In the Tyrol (?): photo by Fritz Heimhuber (?).
Illustration from Mountain Photography by C Douglas Milner.

On the other hand, figures tend to draw too much attention to themselves and so, quite apart from matters of perspective, should not be allowed too near the camera, if their purpose is subsidiary. Between 40 and 100 ft. are useful distances within which a figure or a small group can help to give an idea of the vastness of a view.

References

From C Douglas Milner, Mountain Photography: Its Art and Technique in Britain and Abroad, The Focal Press, First printed October 1945, reprinted June 1946.

“Mountain photography” (3)

Hints on the art and technique from a practitioner of the nineteen-forties.

The question of costs: Whatever type of camera is preferred, the amount of money one can reasonably afford to spend is an important consideration. To go abroad on holiday equipped with only a cheap camera intended to give passable results in one's garden snapshots is to risk failure or disappointment in photographing scenes and events which would have been of permanent value.

Figure from Mountain Photography by C Douglas Milner.

On the other hand, to spend an undue amount on equipment does not of itself assure success. It is really surprising what quality can be obtained with cameras, which are neither modern nor expensive, by workers who know what they are doing. It is equally surprising what appalling results a £100 miniature can yield when not handled with the skill it needs and deserves.

The man whose pocket is limited (and whose is not in these days?) may need to plan his expenditure very carefully, and perhaps will prefer to spend at most £10 or so on a camera and accessories so as to leave a balance available for his transport to the mountains; in preference to exhausting his money on an expensive luxury outfit and so restricting himself to hills nearer home.

References

From C Douglas Milner, Mountain Photography: Its Art and Technique in Britain and Abroad, The Focal Press, First printed October 1945, reprinted June 1946.

“Mountain photography” (2)

Hints on the art and technique from a practitioner of the nineteen-forties.

Mountain districts abroad: Of all the greater mountain areas the most accessible to Britons are the ALPS themselves, stretching from France, through Switzerland and Italy to merge via the DOLOMITES and the Eastern Alps into the mountain mass of the Balkans. Before the war it was cheaper and quicker to visit SWITZERLAND from London than the Isle of Skye.

A ridge of the Tödi (Switzerland): photo by Andreas Pedrett.
Illustration from Mountain Photography by C Douglas Milner. 

For the better part of a century these districts have devoted themselves to the tourist traffic and though much of the scenery has been, so to speak, salted down into "beauty spots", yet the mountain areas are so great that much remains in an unspoilt and natural condition. At all levels, from the lakesides to the upper valleys and the last heights of rock and ice, the photographer will find no lack of subjects for his camera, and at all points there is adequate scope for little journeys off the beaten track, affording the chance of personal discovery of new and unusual viewpoints from which to photograph the hills.

Whilst the lower valleys, especially on the fertile and sunny southern slopes, are richly wooded in great variety, one might perhaps venture a complaint about the upper valleys which do not show great variety of tree growth. There is a certain sameness about them, as if they have been modelled according to a recipe of pine and fir tree, more pine tree with a little larch, picturesque chalets – and beyond all this rather "pretty" foreground, the glaciers and the peaks. Each valley represents minor variations on this excellent but restricted theme. Even RUSKIN, a great admirer and student of Swiss scenery, was compelled to become statistical in his consideration of this problem of pines, and to conclude that each valley must contain not less than five million.

Consequently, although many pleasant pictures can be made in the valleys in summer, the possibilities are fairly easily exhausted and then opportunities for striking photography are best sought at rather higher levels, where the trees thin out and the views open out a little more. Journeys to the many mountain huts will be productive of rich rewards. Most of these can be reached by little more than path walking - up rather steep paths it is true – but offering no difficulty to strong walkers and involving no dangerous glacier crossings or intricate route finding. In this way a night can be spent at higher levels, for the sake of the sunset and sunrise, neither of which is always visible in the deeply cut valley, and for the full views of the high snow peaks.

References

From C Douglas Milner, Mountain Photography: Its Art and Technique in Britain and Abroad, The Focal Press, First printed October 1945, reprinted June 1946.

“Mountain photography” (1)

Hints on the art and technique from a practitioner of the nineteen-forties.

Approach to the subject: First attempts in mountains are not likely to yield much more than a series of prints giving food for thought and consideration of what not to do next time. There is an absence of the clear-cut forms of the town, of strong light and shade, and a lack of familiar elements unless friends are taken in the foreground: when the mountain may immediately be compelled to adopt a very subsidiary role. "That's the summit of SNOWDON just under Mary's hat."

On the summit plateau, Mt Blanc (detail) - photo by F S Smythe.
Illustration from Mountain Photography by C Douglas Milner.

It is best to begin with subjects where the sun is shining from one side — then the shapes of the hills are revealed. To have the light coming directly from behind the camera will show a very featureless result, whilst to use contre jour with the sun more or less directly in front of the lens demands skilled attention. A pale yellow filter — quite pale — will help to keep the sky in its proper place, instead of glaring blankly along the top of the picture. Beyond this, other kinds of filter may only confuse the mind, until experience has been gained.

I do not think overmuch attention should be given to "correct" composition in the early stages. It is more important to find out what range of subjects can be well photographed so as to make prints of sufficient interest and contrast and to be able to secure a series of well-exposed, sharp negatives, which include what it was intended to include. When this is achieved it is time enough to think about the best arrangement, the special effects obtainable with filters, about striking schemes of lighting and about tackling subjects in conditions so adverse that in the early days no hope of success could have been entertained.

In all this, of course, there will be happy accidents. The camera will, in spite of the inexperienced hand guiding it, occasionally produce something which gives the photographer a thrill of achievement, and spurs him on to attain the degree of skill which makes such rewards more frequent and certain.

References

From C Douglas Milner, Mountain Photography: Its Art and Technique in Britain and Abroad, The Focal Press, First printed October 1945, reprinted June 1946.

Reappraising the Abraham brothers (2)

Continued: they took mountain photography to a new level - but was it Art?

Their mentor's death did little to deter the Abraham brothers. Picking up where Owen Glynne Jones had left off, they published a climbing guidebook for North Wales in 1906. George developed into a strong leader in his own right, making first ascents in the Lakes and Scotland. 

The Pinnacle on Scafell.
Image from Alan Hankinson, Camera on the Crags.

The guidebook also helped to launch George on his prolific career of mountain writing. And both brothers became family men and pillars of the local community: Ashley was first a member and then chairman of Keswick Council.

Climbing the Eiger: original caption reads "A safe pull".
Image from George D Abraham, Swiss Mountain Climbs.

They also continued their tradition of summer mountaineering holidays in the Alps, proving that they could wield a camera as stylishly in the big mountains as on their local crags. 

Climbing the Wetterhorn.
Image from George D Abraham, Swiss Mountain Climbs.

Although it's hard to believe that they used an Instanto to capture pictures like the crevasse mishap below – surely, by this time, they’d kitted themselves out with the kind of lighter, handier apparatus that the hard-driving Mrs Main had already adopted for en-route photography. But again the record remains silent on this point.

"Hold tight! A sudden slip into a snow-masked crevasse on the Jungfrau."
        Original caption and photo from First Steps to Climbing.

They certainly explored other photographic innovations. Like Mrs Main, they experimented with film-making before the First World War and in 1921 they helped to make a feature film based on a story written by the mountaineer/novelist A E W Mason – although here the brothers served as stand-ins for the actors during climbing scenes, not as cameramen.

Image from Ashley Abraham, Beautiful Lakeland (1912).

Meanwhile, Ashley had parlayed his mountain photography skills into a series of books celebrating the broader landscapes of the Lake District and North Wales. His command of lighting and composition invites comparison with the likes of Albert Steiner (1877–1965), whose moody exposures captured the dream-like light of Switzerland’s Engadine valley.

Image from Ashley Abraham, Beautiful Lakeland (1912).

Albert Steiner is an intriguing parallel here. For decades after his death, nobody in the fine art world took him seriously. After all, the Swiss photographer had started out as a baker’s son and apprentice and for most of his career he’d made his living as a commercial photographer, producing images of hotel rooms, post buses and whatever else his clients needed for brochures and advertising copy. It was only after a landmark exhibition of his landscapes in 1992, at the Bündner Kunstmuseum in Chur, Switzerland, that the art world started to take him seriously.

View of the Cuillins from Sligachan, Skye.
Image from Alan Hankinson, Camera on the Crags.

All this raises the question whether George and Ashley Abraham aren’t also overdue for a “Kunsthaus moment”. Back then, Mills & Boon hardly did their pictures justice. Shoehorned as sketchily printed plates into one of the romance publisher’s duodecimo editions, their photos have scant room to breathe. But what if the best of their images were digitally remastered, lavishly printed on fine paper, framed, and exhibited as artworks? Then we’d see something like a Steiner-esque transformation, I suspect.

If it does happen, please enjoy the exhibition. And remember you read it here first…

References

George D. Abraham, First Steps to Climbing, Mills & Boon, Limited, London, 1923.

Alan Hankinson, Camera on the Crags: a portfolio of early rock climbing photographs by the Abraham Brothers, Heinemann 1975.

Iso Camartin, Peter Herzog and Ruth Herzog, «Du grosses stilles Leuchten»: Albert Steiner und die Bündner Landschaftsphotographie, Zürich, Offizin, 1992.

Reappraising the Abraham brothers (1)

They took mountain photography to another level – but was it Art? 

Back in March, I dropped into Jimbōchō, Tokyo’s used book district, on the first day of its annual festival. This yielded a musty copy of George D Abraham’s First Steps to Climbing, published in 1923 by Mills & Boon, Limited. Yes, that Mills & Boon – the back papers advertise the kind of titles that the publisher is still best known for, such as Miss Pretty in the Wood, Elizabeth Who Wouldn't, and Love and Chiffon…

The Abraham brothers, Ashley and George, in the 1930s.
Image from Alan Hankinson, Camera on the Crags.

We digress. To share George Abraham’s quirky yet often pertinent climbing advice, this blog then posted a series of excerpts from his book, with the accompanying photos. Which prompted reader Stephen50 to put up some perceptive comments highlighting both the quality of the Abraham brothers’ photography and the existence of a biography, Camera on the Crags by Alan Hankinson.

Climbers in Easter Gully on Dow Crag (detail).
Image from Alan Hankinson, Camera on the Crags.

Intrigued, I reached for a copy of this genial and informative book, which explained just why the Abrahams were such skilled image-makers. For George (1871–1965) and his brother Ashley (1876–1951) were professionals, both born and bred. Their father, George Perry Abraham (1844–1923), founded and owned a successful photography business in Keswick, in the English Lake District – a business that, in turn, passed to Ashley’s son.

On Tryfan's Central Buttress.
Image from Alan Hankinson, Camera on the Crags.

So they had already inherited their photographic smarts by the early 1890s, when they set about learning to rock-climb. This they did on their own bat, which probably explains why George Abraham opined in First Steps that “For a party of beginners the most effective plan, and that which really produces the best climbers, is to tackle the rocks unaided and rely on their own initiative” – a view not widely endorsed today.

Owen Glynne Jones climbing on gritstone.
Image from Alan Hankinson, Camera on the Crags.

But what lofted the brothers into the big league of mountain photography was their partnership with Owen Glynne Jones (1867–1899). By profession a physics teacher in London, Jones was then at the forefront of the rock-climbing scene. A fluent writer, he was working on a climber’s guide to the Lake District, but needed somebody to make the photographs. In the Abraham brothers, he found just the team he was looking for. 

Alpinists on the way to the Fiescherhorn, Bernese Oberland.
Image from George D Abraham, Swiss Mountain Climbs.

From early 1897, for a brief two years, the brothers climbed with Jones in both the Lake District and North Wales. During that time, the brothers also went to the Alps for the first time, although not with Jones. They even talked with him about an expedition to Kanchenjunga. George Abraham advanced his climbing skills and made friends within the climbing community, while it was Ashley who more often than not tended the camera on narrow ledges.

An Underwood "Instanto".
Image by courtesy of antiquewoodcameras.com.

And what a camera! Manufactured by E & T Underwood of 130–2 Granville Street, Birmingham, the “Instanto” was little more than a mahogany frame supporting a leather bellows that could be racked in and out for focus. Shutter? Forget it: after propping the camera on a sturdy tripod, focusing onto a ground glass screen and inserting a dry plate, the photographer removed and replaced the lens cap for an estimated exposure time of, say, a second or more. By today’s norms, the name “Instanto” extravagantly violated any law of trade descriptions.

Climbers on Napes Needle (also styled the Aiguille du Nuque).
Image from Alan Hankinson's Camera on the Crags.

Yet, when viewed in the generously sized plates of Alan Hankinson’s book, the results speak for themselves. The compositions breathe a sense of classical repose, enforced by those lengthy exposure times that froze the climbers by necessity into statuesque poses. But this was only a part of it. 

On the Cuillin Ridge, Skye.
Image from Alan Hankinson, Camera on the Crags.

A typical Abrahams photo never fails to bring out the shadow detail, revealing the texture and detail of the rocks in an opulent, luminous granularity. This they achieved partly from their attention to lighting – diffuse, if possible, and ideally from a three-quarter angle, over the photographer’s shoulder. But development times and tricks must also have played a role. Unfortunately, these are lost to history: the brothers wrote little or nothing about their photographic techniques. 

The Cioch, Skye.
Image from Alan Hankinson, Camera on the Crags.

On a good day, the Abrahams could give even photographic masters such as Georges Tairraz of Chamonix (1868–1924) a run for their money – like themselves, Tairraz represented the second generation of a photographic dynasty. Although any recognition for their skills from that direction was distinctly back-handed. Several of their photos, records George in First Steps to Climbing,  “appeared surreptitiously in Alpine centres with French titles, as though they portrayed bits on the Chamonix aiguilles. The Napes Needle was unmistakable, even titled as the Aiguille du Nuque…” 

On Pillar East Face (detail).
Image from Alan Hankinson, Camera on the Crags.

Alas, the Abraham brothers' rock-climbing apprenticeship with O G Jones was all too short. In August 1899, their mentor fell to his death along with his three guides from the Ferpècle Arête of the Dent Blanche. The accident horrified the climbing world, even leaving its mark on a famous Japanese novel....

(Continued)

A meizanologist's diary (70)

28 March (cont’d): on the way home, I drop in at the Yukio Tabuchi Memorial Museum in Azumino City. I used to think of Tabuchi Yukio (1905–1989) as a science teacher-turned-photographer, but a copy of his collected essays picked up in a second-hand bookshop in Tokyo reminds me of his talents as a writer.

After handing over the ¥300 entrance fee, I instantly understand why those essays are collected under the title of “Ki-iroi tento”(The yellow tent). For standing opposite the door is the namesake tent itself, as personally designed by Tabuchi for bivvies while stalking high-altitude sunrises. So the photographer and writer was also a pioneer of lightweight camping gear.

Speaking of the sunrises, I’m surprised at first not to see any of Tabuchi’s trademark high-contrast black-and-white mountain photography on the walls. As the repository for the photographer’s entire archive, the museum regularly rotates the photos it shows, and today’s exhibition focuses less on the mountains than on the scenery of Azumino during the 1960s.

On second thoughts, nothing could be more appropriate. You could say that Azumino was the making of Tabuchi. After his house in Tokyo was requisitioned during the air raids of 1945, he moved to the mountain-fringed altiplano north of Matsumoto. 

At the age of 40, this was a new start. Soon his photos started appearing in magazines and he published his first photo collection at the age of 46 – a natural progression from the photo scrapbooks he’d been in the habit of assembling. Then he went professional as a photographer and writer.

When Japan started on its high-growth period in the 1960s, Tabuchi saw all too clearly what would happen to Azumino. As its familiar rural scenes started to vanish under the pall of ribbon development, his photographs became their threnody. Even the faded mid-Showa hues of the colour prints glow with nostalgia for a lost world.

Yet another strand runs through Tabuchi’s photography. Like many children, he was fascinated by butterflies. Unlike most, he developed a formidable talent for drawing and painting them: the museum has some 470 sketches and paintings in its collection.

And, as his skills with a camera evolved, he started photographing the insects too. Touchingly, his magisterial book on the alpine butterflies of Japan is dedicated to his wife.

Ah yes, the cameras: a glass-fronted cabinet deploys a complete armoury. The Rittrecks, Koniflexes, Asahiflexes and Mamiyas look less than user-friendly by today's standards. I shake my head, astonished at the virtuosity of Tabuchi’s close-up images of flowers and insects; even with the latest technology, few can aspire to making pictures like these …

But I do aspire to making the next train, having promised the Sensei to be back for a late supper. Alas, there will be no time to investigate Tabuchi's collaboration with the folklorist Mukaiyama Masashige on yukigata, the patterns left on mountainsides by the melting snow. And the reading room full of reference works below the exhibition hall will also have to await another visit; even an extra hour of browsing here won't do full justice to the manifold talents of Azumino’s uomo universale. 

Retrieving my weatherbeaten pack from the Memorial Museum's friendly staff and adding a souvenir photo book as well as a biography to its weight, I step out into the grey afternoon and start walking towards the station. Ariake-yama, the hundred-and-first of the Hundred Mountains, looms ahead. 

And there, rising above the intervening ridges is Jōnen-dake, the mountain that Tabuchi is said to have climbed two hundred and six times, a yellow tent in his pack, in search of the natural world.