Portret van twee onbekende kinderen 1902 - 1906

This "Portret van twee onbekende kinderen" was made by H. Sanders & Co. I am very touched by this sweet photograph of two children. I like the greyscale, the two kids holding hands, one perched precariously on the high stool. You can almost feel the anxiety of the one standing. Photographs are so interesting to me as a painter. They fix and flatten an image and yet it is so atmospheric – you can almost feel the texture of the girl's dress and the weight of her hand on the frame. It makes me think about all the different ways of making marks and making meaning. How different materials and textures, like the silky paper of the photograph, create different effects. I think of the photographer, H. Sanders & Co., of Amsterdam, wanting to capture a real moment, something about family, and how that translates across time. How photographs, like paintings, are about relationships - between the viewer and the viewed, the artist and their subject, and, perhaps most importantly, the way the image is shaped by the materials from which it is made.