The Morbid Beauty of Death and Dimension

Exploring the haunting work of Frederick Sommer through texture and dimension

In total acceptance, almost everything becomes a revelation. — Frederick Sommer

Nepal landscape without a horizon. Photo by Matthew Bamberg

Have you ever photographed a dead animal? It sounds eerie, like something you’d see in a bad horror movie. My proximity to the Salton Sea near Palm Springs, California, is a hot spot for death in the summer. The air reeks of decaying fish, an odor that reaches the Coachella Valley miles away every year. It is a disgusting time of year in the California desert.

The effect of death is a loss of dimension, which Sommer favored. Sommer also defined a loss of dimension by shooting horizonless landscapes or focusing on demonic gestures and facial expressions in portraits.

Yet, the incongruity of it all is overwhelming, and photo ops appear everywhere, however morbid they are. After visiting the Salton Sea a few times during the summer, about an hour from Palm Springs, I returned with photos of the decomposing bodies of several life forms.

Walking along the Salton Sea shore is a noisy affair as the bones crunch under your shoes. The temperature in the region soars to 120 degrees F on many summer days. Decay surrounds you. Stifling heat penetrates your body as if you’ve been put in a frying pan with the heat turned up high.

As my favorite photographer of dead things, Fredrick Sommer was a genius. Perhaps after reading this article, you’ll be seeking carcasses, as that is a part of his photography repertoire. Maybe, you’ll even visit the Salton Sea during the summer.

When you contemplate decay, the first thing that comes to your mind probably isn’t texture and form, not to mention the undeniable fact that death is something that happens to all of us. These aspects of the passage of time were Sommer’s point.

Who is Frederick Sommer?