25 portretten van Odette Waléry en Eugénie Fougère before 1899

Editor: So, here we have a print titled "25 portretten van Odette Waléry en Eugénie Fougère," made before 1899. It shows, well, twenty-five portraits. The layout, the sepia tones... it all feels very methodical, almost like a catalogue. What do you see when you look at it? Curator: Methodical, yes, a very astute observation. It reminds me of old cartes de visite, celebrity photographs people collected like modern-day trading cards. Look at the way the sitters are posed and how they’re named; there’s a distinct performance happening, a kind of constructed celebrity. But within that constraint, can you see hints of personality peeking through, the little rebellions against the formality? Editor: Rebellions? Hmm, not really. To me, it all seems staged and controlled. It's like looking at a sheet of stamps of pretty ladies. Curator: Precisely, it seems artificial to us now, yet that artifice itself reveals something. Imagine the social pressures, the expected behaviours. Perhaps those "staged" poses *were* their way of performing for the camera but, paradoxically, also expressing their sense of self. I see it like a theatrical role for women, dictated by what society believed was appropriate, yet simultaneously being shaped and pushed against by the actresses themselves, the ladies in the photographs. Is that too much of a reach? Editor: I don't know. I didn't think about social constraint until you just said that, but the repetition gives off an uncanny effect now that I'm considering those constraints and thinking about it differently. I am starting to wonder about identity through performance... Curator: And that, my friend, is the power of looking closely! Editor: Definitely a new perspective for me! It's about societal expectations rather than just photography!