Oostzijde van de Hervormde Kerk te Nijbroek 1909

This photograph of the Oostzijde van de Hervormde Kerk te Nijbroek was taken in 1909. You see how the photographer lets the leaves in the trees blur the edges of the image? I love the way the natural world imposes itself on the man-made. The photograph is not perfectly exposed, and it's printed in a range of grays that, to my eye, are far more interesting than a high contrast modern image. It's a little soft, a little blurry, and yet it's able to convey this beautiful, old building. You can see the individual bricks, but you can also sense the photographer's mood. I love the way this image embraces ambiguity, the way that it shows us something real but also something imagined. It makes me think of Atget, the French photographer who documented so many buildings in Paris, and also the work of Eugène Cuvelier.