Groepsportret op een balkon 1911

Geldolph Adriaan Kessler made this gelatin silver print of a group portrait on a balcony sometime, well, we don't know when. It looks to me like the artist was interested in capturing a moment in time. It's like, what does it mean to freeze a group of people in a single shot? And how does that shot then live on, almost like an echo or a memory? It's not just about the people in the photo, but about how we look back at it, and what that says about us. I imagine Kessler pondering similar questions, maybe thinking about how to make the most of this new medium. He’s like, "How can I use this to really see, and to help others see too?” He must have also considered the conversation between painters and photographers, each influencing the other, pushing the boundaries of representation.