Four from Fasser: Belgian Oddballs

Working my way through A. O. Fasser‘s final set marked “Belgium”, I’ve noticed that whilst in Belgium, he tended to shoot a lot of plates on certain subjects: exteriors of ruins, landscapes, and in this set in particular, the waterfront. But here and there, I’ve come across some oddballs, various Great War scenes that don’t fit with the rest of the set. Here are four of them:

Two tanks in a field, with a wheelbarrow in the foreground.
A field cemetery, with four soldiers next to shrouded bodies.
The hallway of an abandoned building, presumably military due to the high windows to the outdoors, and presumably constructed pre-gaslight (or at least pre-electric-light) due to interior windows – characteristic of hospitals as well.
A path to a strange outpost – seemingly constructed from the hollowed-out base of a giant tree.

While the subject matter for these may be quite different than most of Fasser’s photography, many of the characteristics are similar – central horizon lines (excepting for the cemetery shot, which has hills in the background), tilted composition for the interior shot (similar to that used in the hospital photographs from France), and sadly as with most of the slides that were not taped to blank glass – a lot of emulsion damage. Still, it’s another side of Fasser’s work, and these are still pleasing – if imperfect – images.

Anaglyphs

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