Album

In 1993 and 1994, during two successive trips, I traveled the distance of some 1000 kilometer La Loire river takes from it's source at the Mont Gerbier de Jonc to where it empties into the Atlantic Ocean near St. Nazaire. La Loire being the longest European river within the borders of one country, France. The river is not yet fully tamed by human interventions which results in regular seasonal flooding of the surrounding countryside. Meanwhile the water from the river is used for cooling some atomic reactors in its proximity. The French don't worry, they seem proud of their atomic energy.

I photographed the river with a 6x12 cm back mounted on a large format Cambo-Wide camera. Except for the first and last image I contact-printed the resulting panorama's. The title, Album, is an homage to the 19th Century Photographic Albums, in which I tried to represent the different typologies developed over the years during the ongoing search for representation in landscape photography.