Portret van een man met snor 1895 - 1914

This photo by Louis Fraenkel shows a man with a mustache, and it’s all about softness and sepia tones, like a memory fading at the edges. It's fascinating how photography, especially old photography like this, plays with light and shadow. You can almost feel the texture of the paper, see the subtle variations in tone that give the portrait depth. Look at how the light catches the curve of his cheek, or the way it defines the shape of his mustache. It’s like the photographer is sculpting with light. I wonder what kind of camera Fraenkel used. The softness makes me think of some of Gerhard Richter’s blurred portraits, but with a Victorian-era twist. It’s like Fraenkel knew that art is all about capturing a fleeting moment, a sense of time passing, and Richter, with his own soft focus, riffed on that idea a century later. There is a real conversation across time here.