THE sky is heavy with the promise of snow, rocks peep out of the white hills, and a man in a T-shirt crouches over a snow hare, dusting its feet.
The scene is a diorama – a tableau of a real-world scene, stuffed animals included. The man is in fact an interloper, captured at work by photographer Richard Barnes.
Originally created for use in early 19th-century theatre, dioramas are used in museums to depict towns, battlegrounds or wild environments. Barnes, who has photographed many museums and institutions worldwide, loves dioramas. “I have a 19th-century sensibility,” he says. “I find the theatricality…
