Neerlaten van een sloep c. 1930s

This small, anonymous photograph shows a sloop being lowered from a ship, and I immediately start thinking about how we can never really know the whole story behind an image like this. The sepia tone, the way the light washes out the details, it all feels so much like a memory. There’s a beautiful blurriness to the surface, like the photographer was less concerned with capturing a perfect image and more interested in the feeling of the moment. You can almost feel the boat rocking, the sun beating down, the salty air on your skin. The figures are so indistinct that they become shapes, just like the planks of wood that make up the ship. It reminds me of some of Gerhard Richter’s blurred paintings, the way he takes a photograph and then smears it, abstracts it, until it becomes something else entirely. It’s about embracing imperfection, about finding beauty in the everyday, and understanding that sometimes, the most interesting stories are the ones that are never fully told.