No title, 1979

Dag Alveng (b. 1953) is one of Norway’s foremost and most significant photographic artists. Not least, he is among the photographers who have helped bring attention to fine art photography in Norway. Dag Alveng has been taking photographs since he was 8 or 9 years old. It was his father who taught him the craft, and exceptional technical quality has always been Alveng’s hallmark. Technical perfectionism and skill are combined with his emphasis on distinctive photographic qualities such as rich detail reproduction, the interplay between the whole and the details, and a nuanced gray-scale range. While other photographers range their images from the brightest white to the darkest black, Alveng works within the upper range of grays: From a narrow spectrum of grays, he brings out the most incredible nuances and “colors” in his so-called black-and-white images. We can speak of an abstraction of reality. In the shades of gray, it is the light that captivates the viewer in Alveng’s photographs. At times, one is almost blinded by its high intensity. The subjects are neither exotic scenes nor spectacular motifs, but everyday scenes that surround us all.