Meudon 1928

André Kertész created this image in Meudon, a place transformed by the making of something new. There’s this man carrying a huge package through the streets, and a train hurtling on a bridge above. It is an image about the speed of modernity but the slowness of ordinary life. The photograph is also about construction and how the new rubs shoulders with the old. The street has a lovely downward slope, and I imagine Kertész waiting for the right moment and the right light. I think he’s waiting for the world to come to him. It reminds me of Atget's street photography. It’s like they are in a conversation about what it means to record a place and moment in time. What do you think they were trying to say to each other?