Portret van Netta Bergsma als eenjarige baby, zittend naast een verjaardagstaart op Sumatra 1920

This photograph of Netta Bergsma as a one-year-old, sitting next to a birthday cake on Sumatra, was made at an unknown date by an anonymous photographer. I imagine the photographer carefully composing this shot, thinking about how to best capture this moment of Netta’s first birthday. You know, getting down low to be on her level. I wonder what was going through their mind as they pressed the shutter release? There's a tenderness in how the light falls across Netta’s face, and how the birthday cake is carefully positioned in the center. Photography, like painting, is all about capturing light, shadow, and the textures of the world. This image shares something with other kinds of portraiture: a desire to preserve a fleeting moment, to hold onto something precious. Like an abstract painting, it is not about capturing a likeness, but about evoking a feeling, a memory, a sense of connection. Artists build on each other's work, playing off of what's come before, so maybe this photographer was inspired by portrait painters? It's like an ongoing conversation across time, an echo of creativity.