Portret van twee onbekende mannen, één met verrekijker 1900 - 1914

This portrait of two unknown men, one holding binoculars, was made by Jos. Ohlenschläger, though we don't know when. Look at the way the grayscale renders the textures of their suits and the soft blur of the background, there's a feeling of something caught in between two ways of seeing. The man with the binoculars has this wonderfully serious expression. His gaze is slightly off, as if he’s looking just past us, into a future only he can foresee. It is that very combination of precision and indeterminacy that makes photography so beautiful to me. You can almost smell the chemicals and hear the click of the shutter. This piece reminds me a little of the work of Gerhard Richter, someone who is thinking about the history of painting and the ways it intersects with photography. It isn't so much about capturing a likeness, as about the process of seeing itself.