On The Rocks

This photographic base was shot in Joshua Tree National Park, California

Printed on Fine Art Hahnemühle Hemp Natural Line 290 g/m2.

Each print comes signed and numbered. 

Unframed. With a small white border. Send in a tube.

Print size 90 x 75 cm - Edition of 10

Print size 60 x 50 cm - Edition of 10.

Print size 30 x 25 cm - Edition of 10.
Print size 10,5 x 14,8 cm (DIN A6) - Edition of 100.

"On The Rocks" by Thomas Haensgen is a visual paradox that feels like the moment you wake up in the dead of night, caught in a surreal heartbeat of not knowing if you're still dreaming or already awake—only to find yourself lying on a lunar sandstone landscape and suddenly realizing the moon itself is watching you.

In this piece, the human body merges with the rugged, seemingly infinite textures of a rocky terrain. The black-and-white composition, almost spectral, recalls the works of Edward Weston, who similarly placed the human form in a dialogic contrast with nature. Yet Haensgen takes it further: the woman in the scene doesn’t appear to simply lie on the rocks but seems to melt into them, as if the stone shaped her—or she shaped the stone. It’s as though Salvador Dalí secretly borrowed a camera, trading melting clocks for melting topographies.

The interplay of light and shadow creates an almost theatrical tension accompanied by a cold distance—a hallmark reminiscent of Helmut Newton’s visual language, though without Newton’s glossy perfectionism. Here, the shadow feels like a silent character in an abandoned opera that forgot when its final act began.

But the real brilliance lies in the banal honesty of the scene: this is not just a nude study; it’s the moment you tell your roommate that pile of rocks in Joshua Tree looked way comfier than it actually was. Haensgen’s work channels that slightly absurd moment where the sublime overlaps with the everyday—and both emerge triumphant.

This image positions itself at the crossroads of surrealism and contemporary nude photography, yet remains firmly grounded in the here and now, like a memory stubbornly refusing to fade.