ONE FRAME DEEP: Andreas Rønning

Christmas, New Year, and a couple of birthdays later, we’re back. This week’s One Frame Deep takes us to Oslo and to the first featured artist of 2026: capital city photographer Andreas Rønning.

From Rønning’s Instagram, it’s clear he moves fluidly between digital and analog, often with a Leica in hand. But as always, the tool is not the point here. The frame is. So let’s dive straight into this image, titled I Vater, translated neatly as In Level.

What they chose to include

Mountains, water, grass, and a carved out strip of sand that feels both intentional and accidental. It looks like a place meant for the sheep, but also like something shaped by human hands. A cut in the land. Or maybe the sheep simply found it and claimed it(?)

The palette is beautifully restrained: muted greens, soft blues, pale sand. The contrast between grass and sand is subtle, but confident, grounding the frame. Structurally, the image is divided almost perfectly into thirds; sand, water, land/sky, each section balancing the one below it.

And then there are the sheep.

They’re not what you see first. Your eye reads the landscape before it notices them resting there, aligned, calm, slightly absurd in the best possible way. When they reveal themselves, there’s a joy. Their presence humanizes the landscape without overwhelming it. They truly belong, yet they surprise.

What They Chose to Exclude

There’s no sky drama here. No dramatic light. No people. No distractions pulling the frame toward something beyond what’s there.

By excluding the spectacular, Rønning allows the photograph to remain balanced. The absence of strong highlights or deep shadows keeps everything on the same visual level, true to the title. Nothing shouts. Nothing sinks. Every element is given equal weight, and that restraint is what gives the image its strength.


Why It Works

Because it’s patient.

The composition trusts the viewer. It doesn’t point or explain. It simply presents a scene where everything feels aligned, horizontally, tonally, emotionally. The sheep echo the layers of the landscape. The carved sand mirrors the distant shoreline. Repetition without symmetry. Order without stiffness.

I Vater isn’t about the sheep, or the landscape, or even the place. It’s about balance, between nature and intervention, between humor and calm, between seeing and noticing.

Final Thoughts

This is an image that stays with you precisely because it doesn’t try to. It rests. It waits. And it rewards anyone willing to slow down.

A photograph in level.

Photographer: Andreas Rønning
Instagram: @postcharter
Website: closeprox.darkroom.com