Abendsonne.

Abendsonne. Photographs by Misha de Ridder. Schaden.com, 2011. 14 pp., illustrated throughout, 30x36,5cm. Images from here.

I really like the work of Dutch photographer Misha de Ridder and have previously featured the book Dune with his work.

'Abendsonne', which can loosely be translated to "evening sun", is a beautiful series of photographs capturing this twice-yearly natural phenomenon.


Book description:

"Sometimes natural phenomena can become so estranged and mysterious, that we are inclined to describe them as unreal realities. It might be the extraordinary shape of a tree, a mountain, a shadow, a cloud or the mirroring reflection of nature in a lake, but it is foremost the unfamiliarity of the natural aesthetics of reality.

The photos in this book literally refer to such an unfamiliar natural phenomenon, a phenomenon that appears twice a year during the end of the autumn and the beginning of spring for the period of one week in an area in the Swiss Alps.

During the winter season a village is permanently covered by the shadow of a high mountain in the west, which eliminates all direct sunlight. A week before darkness falls, the sun appears one more time after it has set every evening. A mysterious phenomenon known as 'Abendsonne'. "