“I had a conviction that it is not within the ‘good image’ that poetry lives, but rather in the movement, energy, searching and doing. A conviction about the power of getting close and when perfection is not reached. The dizziness of when the fumbling continues even though it will never result in the final. The beauty of that fumbling.”
‘Dimma Brume Mist’ grew out of an extensive archive: more than two hundred binders holding thousands of contact sheets and negatives. Over a five-year period, JH Engström repeatedly revisited this material, delving into overlooked corners in search of the connective tissue running through his 35 years of photographic work. His intention was not to assemble a retrospective or a highlight reel, but to shape something entirely new. The outcome is ‘Dimma Brume Mist’—a substantial volume composed of previously unseen photographs accompanied by text.
All the images in this book have been directly scanned from the contact sheets, and none of the images in the 672-page book has previously been published.”
Early in this process, a structure for the book began to take shape. Engström started arranging images into pairs and sequences that moved between contrasting yet interlinked themes: rural and urban, motion and stillness, interior and exterior, safety and vulnerability, childhood and adulthood, contemplation and spontaneity, self and other, nature and civilisation.
As the project progressed, a second rhythm emerged—an interplay between images and words—which ultimately became the foundation of the book’s form.
