Groep onbekende mannen waarvan enkele pijp roken before 1920

Donald Mennie made this photograph of a group of unknown men, some smoking pipes, in the early twentieth century. It’s like the beginning of a good story, right? What were they talking about, I wonder, as the picture was being taken? Was it a game of strategy or of chance that brought them together in the shadow of that imposing gate? I imagine Mennie carefully composing this scene, balancing the everyday with the monumental. He positions these figures in a casual huddle, drawing our eye to them. He's captured a kind of intimacy and social interaction. He’s also thinking about how to present his own point of view as an outsider. The whole history of photography is tied up with capturing a kind of reality. But really, it’s all a set of choices the artist makes, a conversation across time about how we see each other.