Martas hus på Hvitsten

This photograph is almost a disaster—or maybe that’s exactly its strength. Flaws can make an image more alive; they pull your attention away from mere depiction and toward something stranger, more physical, more felt.

It was made with a 4×5″ large-format camera—film plates, old mechanics, slow decisions—the same setup I used for Stabil himmel. At the time, I had never handled anything larger than a Hasselblad 500, and the learning curve was real. But Hvitsten has a way of demanding patience. When I took the shot, Martas hus was already in the process of being demolished.

After development, I was mesmerised by the grain and the razor-sharp detail. And then there was the surprise: a mirror-like flare caused by stray, deflected light during the exposure. Technically a mistake—visually a gift. It runs through the subject like a quiet haunting and adds exactly the kind of mystery the scene seems to ask for.

The image is printed in black and white on FineArt paper, then taken one step further through a “reverse analog” developing process: colour is introduced after the fact by bathing the print in tinted water, allowing pigment to seep into the fibres like a dye. The result is a one-of-a-kind piece—and one of my personal favourites.