Portret van twee onbekende vrouwen 1901 - 1908

This image, Portret van twee onbekende vrouwen, was captured by Gottfrid Zielfeldt, a photographer working out of Stockholm. It's a photograph, so we’re dealing with the chemistry of light and shadow, captured in shades of gray. But it's also about texture, those dresses are practically swallowing the two women whole. The details are so specific - look at the way the fabric folds and gathers, the buttons, all of it rendered with such precision. I keep thinking about the surface of a photograph, it’s so flat. Yet, Zielfeldt has captured a sense of volume and depth. See how the light falls across their faces, creating subtle highlights and shadows, but there is an intimacy here that makes me wonder who these people were, what they felt, and how they lived. Looking at this, I wonder if Gertrude Käsebier or Julia Margaret Cameron might have been doing similar things at the time, exploring light and shadow, and questioning what the nature of portraiture really is.