Vertical panoramas taken in a black and white city.

On Friday the 7th of May the opening of the exhibition "Charleroi Verticale" by Dan Hummel took place in Galerie Frei in Cologne. With nearly 100 guests, the small gallery was well filled on Luxemburger Straße. After the successful opening, the guests celebrated for a long time in bar "Katinka" just opposite Galerie Frei.

In the exhibition "Charleroi Verticale" Dan Hummel showed a selection of vertical images that are created with the help of a Noblex panoramic camera in the Belgian town of Charleroi. These black and white images fascinate by an unusual perspective that extends from the toes of the viewer to the skies above the city. The pictures make the viewer raising the eyes and viewing city perspectives from a different angle. The extreme vertical formats are being developed as analog large format images. Four of the vertical images are produced on canvas, a now rare, analog black and white material. The processing must be done in a traditional darkroom. Each linen-like photo print with chords is tied up in an aluminum frame, which gives the design its own unique character.

Many of Dan Hummel’s latest pictures are taken during trips through Belgium and show very unique motifs from our neighboring country. The sometimes bizarre landscapes exert their own appeal and draw attention to things and situations that everyone knows but no one sees. The transitory and the inconspicuous are highlighted in a completely new way.
The artist’s focus is images of cities and landscapes with relics of human activity. Frequently abandoned, yet frequently overlooked and often without the glamor of earlier days, they are pictured in sometimes melancholic and often cryptic snapshots: the fragments of our existence.

From the press release for the exhibition