Op kantoor waar Berti Hoppe werkt 1930 - 1931

This is a photo album page, by Berti Hoppe, with snapshots of office life. The silver gelatin prints are small, arranged on the gray page like studies, or maybe the panels of a comic strip. There's a softness to the images, a kind of overall tonality that unifies the scenes, whether it's a group of workers gathered around a table, a portrait of a man reading, or a woman standing alone. These are the everyday moments. There is no staging. No grandstanding. What I love is how Hoppe captures the rhythm of work. There are pauses for thought, for camaraderie, for a moment of solitude. The whole thing has the feel of a sketchbook, of an artist working through ideas. Think of Walker Evans or Bernd and Hilla Becher, artists who used photography to document the world around them with a similar eye for detail and composition. The album becomes a kind of archive, a record of the fleeting moments that make up a life.