Han Hartog

Because I use a camera as a tool, I can be called a photographer. Yet I see myself primarily as a maker of images. My work is rooted in photographic technique. However, both my approach to image-making and my post-processing often lead to intensely painterly results. Modern cameras can produce well-exposed photographs almost automatically. And with some practice, one can create competently composed images. But for me, a photograph must be more than merely “beautiful” in a technical sense to possess real expressive power. It should convey something sublime or numinous—something of the mystery that lies behind life itself, a mystery that each of us knows and recognizes in our own way. There is often an element of estrangement, something “out of the ordinary” in my work. Something that prompts the question: “Is there more happening here than what I can see with my eyes?”