New Horizons Exhibition at Panorama Mesdag | Bruno van den Elshout

I recently wrote about my visit to the Panorama Mesdag Museum in The Hague, Netherlands and my experiences viewing the country’s largest panorama. What I failed to mention is the museum’s latest exhibition by Bruno van den Elshout. My reasoning – it needed its very own blog post!

The New Horizons photo exhibition is a fascinating, tranquil experience and one with a very interesting story. Bruno’s photographs were taken from a custom-built installation on the rooftop of the NH Atlantic Hotel in Kijkduin, The Hague. His equipment was set up there to capture the North Sea over a period of 365 days – the whole of 2012! In fact, a photo was automatically taken every hour throughout day and night and right in the direction of the open ocean.

You may ask, so what is so exciting about taking (what could possibly be) the same photos of the exact same place for an entire year? Let me tell you that these photos are like magic. Their rawness, realness and simplicity are captivating and are sure worth the attention.

My very first words to Peter Provoost, my tour guide, upon seeing these images were: “are they really photos?” and “are you sure they haven’t been photoshopped?” Because, quite honestly, they appear so magical, so beautiful, almost too good to be true. In our time of Instagram and magic photo filters it’s sometimes hard for us to believe that the real thing is far more appealing and beautiful, in all its simplicity. And that’s something very powerful I learnt from the exhibition.

I read that part of what Bruno wanted to do was get people to reflect and also appreciate the simple things – a time away from our information overloaded world; a time away from our screens and multiple devices. Bruno has given us an opportunity to really see things with our own eyes – not through any filters, and that’s really the beauty of his exhibition.

The two main themes that make up the exhibition are peace and space and both are no doubt evident. Bruno was said to have turned to the North Sea for clarity and inner peace on occasion in his life. And he was inspired to capture these photographs because his young son (2 years old at the time) pointed at the horizon, saw a ship and thought it was a plane. And that moment sparked the idea.

And as a result, the images Bruno has captured are fascinating especially when compared. It is evident that nature creates some of the most spectacular displays at all periods of the day. Take for example these shots of the horizon below. They were taken within one hour of each other. One at 20h00 and one at 21h00 on the 28th June 2012. How odd that they appear almost as inverse and that the sky can change so rapidly in such a short period of time.

Bruno’s equipment can be seen in the photo below. He had to make sure the camera could withstand the heat of summer and the cold Dutch winter. The camera even had a windscreen wiper of sorts and a sprinkler system for potential overheating. It was also linked to the internet and in this way, photos could be instantly uploaded. You can browse for photos taken on a particular day in 2012 here.

I went back in time and tried to find shots taken of the North Sea, just around the time when I left South Africa on the 28th December 2012 (even before I knew I would end up moving to the Netherlands!). Check it out – these two pics are an hour apart – one at 16h00 and one at 17h00 (more or less the time when I departed the southern hemisphere for the north). The differences in light are pretty incredible. Nature’s way of celebrating itself, you could say.

 

Lastly, I do hope you enjoy this video of some of the shots taken from Bruno’s exhibition. My favourite are the purple, orange and greyish sunsets towards the end of the video; such a pleasing combination.

You can visit the New Horizons exhibition at Panorama Mesdag, in The Hague until the 1st March 2015.