Vrouw in klederdracht aan een water c. 1900 - 1910

G. Hidderley made this small black and white photograph of a woman in traditional dress by the water, and what gets me is the pose. She’s sitting on this rough rock embankment, her head resting on her hand, the picture plane angled down and away towards the water, and so her pose – this gesture – almost feels like she is slipping away, dissolving into the ocean, or the sky. The light isn't harsh, and instead it's soft and bleeds across the scene, blurring the woman’s shape into the hazy distance. This blurring lends an emotional tone, a feeling of sadness, perhaps, or longing. You know, it reminds me a bit of Caspar David Friedrich, that early Romantic sensibility, where figures are often dwarfed by nature. Here, the woman’s personal moment is caught against the vastness of the world, the picture offering us a glimpse into a quiet, intimate moment. And like a memory, it's not so clear, and open to interpretation.