Straattafereel met poppenkast in Den Haag 1884 - 1928

Wilhelm Frederick Antonius Delboy made this photo of a street scene with a puppet show in The Hague, and the sepia tones suggest it was from a long time ago. It’s interesting to think of photography as a process, too, because even though we think of it as capturing a moment, there’s so much artifice involved. Looking closely at the surface of this photo, it almost feels like I could reach out and touch the rough texture of the buildings, the smoothness of the street. The way the light falls on the scene, creating deep shadows and bright highlights, gives the image a sense of depth and dimensionality. My eye keeps going back to the little group of people gathered around the puppet show, they’re so still, so quiet, almost like figures in a dream. Delboy was a documentarian; it’s hard not to think of the photographs of Eugene Atget. Both capture the life of the city, but also hint at something more mysterious, something just beyond our grasp. It’s a reminder that art isn’t just about what we see, but also about what we feel.