Rivierlandschap in Duitsland 1900 - 1922

Here we have Robert Julius Boers' ‘Rivierlandschap in Duitsland’, probably made with a camera and silver gelatin somewhere in Germany. The sepia tone and soft focus makes the scene feel like a memory. The composition is split into thirds. Water takes up the bottom third, houses the middle, and a hill crowned with buildings takes up the top third. If you look closely at the water you can see the slight variations in tone that suggest movement across the surface. There's a boat moving left to right in the center of the frame, like a solid dark slash. It creates a rhythm that counters the movement in the water and balances the composition. You could spend ages looking at early photographs like this. They invite a slower kind of looking; there's a stillness to them that makes me think of Atget, and how he looked at Paris as a city in transition. There's a dialogue between these images, they don't give easy answers but offer a space for reflection.