Few things are as alluring as a well-told story, filled with implication, nuance, and depth.

Against the Tide by Wouter Vanhees is a small, brilliant, black and white photo-story. It’s the kind of book where, at least for me, you quickly find yourself in a flow state. The rest of the world simply disappears for a short while as you turn the pages and get involved.

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“Against the Tide” by Wouter Vanhees
Published by Hopper & Fuchs, 2025
Review by W. Scott Olsen

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Think of the difference between a novel and a short story. While narrative is solidly a part of all good photography, most photobooks tend toward the feel of a novel—slow and complicated development, frequent digressions that reveal their relevance only in the gestalt. But then there are the photobooks, usually small, with the compact precision and the every-word-matters urgency of a short story.

Against the Tide is a wonderful short story.

The book begins with a ribbon cover wrap. On the outside, it reads: “Everybody needs a compass to navigate this chaos, where everything and its opposite is true.” The dark, black and white image on the cover itself is a man, on the other side of a window, in the act of raising or lowering a cigarette to his lips, in what looks like a hallway. There is another window beyond him, and then a harsh white building and a tree. Reflections abound. The windows are dirty. There are lines of squares, rectangles, and angles.

The part of the cover-wrap that’s inside the front cover has a small note. It reads: This is my story about Mumbai. My friends Sidharth, Apurv, Ashish, Utkarsh, and Varun, and the music they create, together with Pacifist, inspired it, and I’m grateful they accepted to be a part of it.”

I have not even opened the cover and I already have setting, characters, a bit of plot. The part of the wrap that’s inside the back cover reads, मुंबई. Mumbai, in Hindi. Take the wrap off, and you find the book’s title in large, bold-face type.

Of course, at this moment, we have no idea what tide the book is working against. Contemporary politics. Environmental disaster. Economic injustice. It could be anything. But there’s no denying there’s something narratively compelling about being against any tide. To be against any tide is a promise of originality and perhaps noble tragedy.

Open the book. There’s a black and white, grainy picture of somebody singing. Then a full spread from a hilltop outside Mumbai. Then, there are only two pages of text in the entire book (not counting the publishing details at the very back). The first page, by Vanhees, expands on the bit from the cover flap.

Everybody needs a compass to navigate this chaos,
Where everything and its opposite is true.
A counterweight to balance the act.
A pacifying song to outsing the siren’s call,
To cautiously guide one, against the tide.

This is my story of Mumbai.

On the facing page, there is some text from the band itself. It reads:

Mumbai is a city of contradictions and ironies. It’s strange to think that one could feel alienated and alone in such an overpopulated place. Where people think the city of dreams must come with plentitude, there feels a dearth of actual opportunity. There’s a contrast with the rich elite and the destitute labor classes, the dichotomy of time with the Mumbai we know, and the Bombay we once knew.

Mumbai feels like it belongs to everyone, and yet at the same time, it belongs to no one. None of us really knew what life in Mumbai had in store for us. No member of Pacifist was born or raised here, to lay claim to this city. But that doesn’t change the fact that we belong. Mumbai is our home, and with all the love/hate hyperbole that comes with living in this city, we’d have it no other way.

We tried to capture that unsettling feeling of dissonance and an ode to that stark contrast, through our music and visuals. Our narrative is far removed from geographical pride and instead more rooted in socio-political consciousness, and Mumbai has plenty of character to show in that regard.

Welcome to the jungle.

The next page shows a collection of high-rise buildings far too close together, satellite dishes, and roof repair. This is followed by an image of an alley, then page after page of urban jungle. Slowly, characters begin to emerge in this setting, and like the very best short stories, we have a place, we have a tone, and we have a disconnect or a problem: how to exist in such an environment. Where can integrity and individuality escape the polyphonic loneliness of a huge city?

Beginning with a picture of a guitar case in a hallway, we start to see the band emerge as characters. We see bedrooms and kitchens, tea being made, then what appears to be a rehearsal. To be clear, though, this is not a story about the musical rise of some band from obscurity to pop stardom. It is about the existence of some band fighting against the tide of a city, offering who knows what in terms of rage or succor.

Vanhees’ images are all black and white, often high contrast, often soft focus, and frequently grainy. They are mood pieces as much as documentary work. There are full spreads that jump the gutter and live on both sides, and there are pages of simply all black or all white.

But going through this book is very much like reading a short story. Hence the flow state. It’s not so much that we get involved with any individual image as a separate, detached fine art expression (although each of the images is adroit and provocative), as much as we get the feeling of a band against the odds. Noble heroes.

I cannot, based on this book, tell you what kind of music they play. And I’m also quite sure that doesn’t matter. Against the Tide is a photo documentary project with a strong sense of narrative, a strong sense of investment in the personnel of the band. This is a band in situ, and the settings of this book are intimate. This is not a tourist book of Mumbai. But it is also not invasive.

If you ever wonder what black and white documentary photography can do in terms of creating a feeling, and through that feeling explore deep currents of sociology, here is a recent best example.

A note from FRAMES: Please let us know if you have an upcoming or recently published photography book.