Ernst Weber 1902

This is Ernst Weber, photographed by Nicola Perscheid, but sometime during his life, someone must have tinted this sepia image, or left it by a window and the light has drained some areas and left others with a coffee-stained appearance. Look at the almost translucent surface of the paper and imagine it was a canvas instead. A canvas is a surface on which to explore the materiality of paint, its viscosity, and how it reflects light; photography explores light and tonality, in a way that feels parallel to painting. I can almost imagine the artist, Perscheid, trying to make a photograph that mimics the formal qualities of painting. See the way the dark of Weber's jacket fades into the background, how that bow tie is perfectly formed from light and dark, much like a brushstroke? Photography, like painting, invites us to see the world in new ways, to discover beauty in unexpected places.