Militair voor een deur 1941 - 1945

This black and white photograph of a soldier in front of a door might not leap out as an artwork, but it draws you in. I think about the photographer holding their camera, framing the shot, waiting for the right moment to capture something revealing about this person, this place. The act of photography itself is kind of like painting, capturing a fleeting moment of light and shadow, shaping it, and making something new and expressive from it. I wonder what the photographer and the soldier might have been thinking as the photo was taken. Was the photographer trying to capture the soldier's humanity, his vulnerability? And what about the soldier? Was he aware of the photographer's gaze? Did he feel exposed, or was he simply going along with the moment? In some ways, I feel like photography is just another way that artists across time try to communicate something about what it means to be alive.