Een familie in Suriname 1913 - 1930

Theodoor Brouwers made this small glass slide, a photograph titled 'A Family in Suriname', sometime between 1875 and 1932. The photograph, a hazy monochrome, captures a family posed around a table in what looks like a sparsely furnished room. What strikes me is the texture of the light. It’s not smooth, not a slick surface, but grainy, almost like a drawing made up of tiny, individual marks. This reminds me that photography, just like painting, is a process. It’s about how light interacts with a surface, how the photographer manipulates that interaction to create an image. Look closely at the way the light falls on the patterned fabric of the mother’s dress, how it flattens and distorts the pattern, making it almost abstract. It's like a little painting nestled within the photograph. Brouwers' work, with its focus on capturing a moment in time, reminds me of the work of early social documentary photographers like Jacob Riis, who used photography to shed light on the lives of marginalized communities. Like all good art, this photograph invites multiple interpretations and encourages us to question our assumptions about the world.