Portret van een man in militair uniform 1890 - 1920

This is a photograph of a man in military uniform by Edmond Sacré, and look at those sepia tones! The way Sacré has faded out the details, particularly around the edges, makes me think about memory. The details of the uniform are crisp and defined, yet the face seems to emerge from a kind of misty haze, or a developing memory. I'm drawn to the slight blurring around the man's eyes. It's not quite out of focus, but there’s a softening that gives him an almost dreamlike quality. There's a similarity to the work of Julia Margaret Cameron, another photographer interested in the evocative potential of soft focus. Like Cameron, Sacré seems less interested in pure representation and more concerned with mood, feeling, and the passage of time. It’s a reminder that art is always a conversation, a back-and-forth between artists and ideas across the years.