Siccarvei before 1908

This photograph called Siccarvei was taken by Geldolph Adriaan Kessler. It's a landscape; the image is printed in soft monochrome, which for me flattens out the tonal range, pushing the texture to the forefront. There's this incredible tension between the smooth, reflective surface of the water in the foreground, and the rough, tangled bank that rises up towards the cluster of buildings in the distance. It's like the photo is trying to capture the fleeting moment when light and shadow play across the scene, constantly shifting and reshaping our perception of it. I love the way the artist embraces the inherent qualities of photography: the graininess, the subtle gradations of tone. It reminds me a bit of Gustave Le Gray, who worked at a similar time, especially his landscapes. It is about finding beauty in the everyday, and about recognizing that art is as much about the questions we ask as the answers we find.