Gedeelte van de stadsmuur van Harderwijk 1900 - 1920

This anonymous photograph captures a section of the city wall of Harderwijk. I like the tones. It’s the kind of photograph that feels like it has been etched from history itself. You can imagine the photographer, whoever they were, setting up their camera, probably some kind of view camera I guess, patiently arranging their composition. I’m feeling the weight of those stones. You can feel how they’ve been there for hundreds of years, right? Each one seems to carry a story, each little gesture in how they’re placed and how they’ve weathered. There’s a stillness, a solidity, but also a sense of time passing, a silent dialogue between the present and the past. And the plants growing at the bottom; I suppose they're a little like painting, in that they are always creeping over surfaces, always finding ways into everything, into the cracks between things. Photography, like painting, is a conversation across time. Each artist takes something from the past, interprets it, and offers something new to the future.