Veysseire. Michel. 25 ans, né à Montreuil. Journaliste. Anarchiste. 5/3/94 1894

Editor: So, this is a gelatin silver print from 1894 by Alphonse Bertillon, currently at The Met. The title is: "Veysseire. Michel. 25 ans, né à Montreuil. Journaliste. Anarchiste. 5/3/94". It feels like a mugshot, stripped bare, but intensely human too. What do you see in this photograph, beyond the obvious? Curator: Beyond the clinical detachment Bertillon was aiming for with his identification photographs? I see a story, etched onto a young face. Anarchist journalist… sounds like someone with fire in their belly. And yet, look at the almost gentle way the light catches the knot of his neckerchief. Does that soften him, make him more of a romantic figure, or simply highlight the complexities we all contain? What do *you* think? Editor: I guess it makes him more relatable, more like someone I might meet. Almost modern, despite the age of the print. But that stark background is pretty unforgiving. Curator: Indeed. That tension is precisely what makes it so compelling, don't you think? It's like he's caught between his convictions and the cold machinery of the law. One can’t help but wonder about the path he walked, the choices he made. Perhaps there are little rebels in all of us… how can we resist those tendencies? Editor: It's fascinating to think about him resisting… or not. Seeing someone documented like this really makes you think about their life beyond that single moment. Curator: Precisely. These aren't just mugshots. They are fragments of untold narratives. A testament to Bertillon's somewhat unintentional, and yet truly profound contribution to our understanding of history through the captured image. He preserved humanity, inadvertently… a happy accident! Editor: That's given me a whole new appreciation for something I thought was a pretty straightforward portrait. I didn’t think that portraits taken by the police can be artworks with deep roots. Curator: And that, my dear student, is why we keep looking, keep questioning. There is magic waiting to be found, and shared.