Portret van F. en E. van der Hooft Bicker Caarten 1907

This photograph of Mr. and Mrs. van der Hooft Bicker Caarten was taken in Amsterdam by Friedrich Carel Hisgen, most likely in the late nineteenth century. I'm wondering what it was like to be a photographer then. Unlike painting, where every mark counts, photography gives you too much information. Hisgen must have been thinking a lot about how to frame the couple, where to put them in relation to each other, and how much space to leave around them. Look at the background. Is that a curtain? Or a landscape? The light seems very even, and that tells me that the camera was probably in a studio. It’s like Hisgen made a painting out of real life and that makes the work a kind of collaboration with the world. As viewers we carry forward the artist's intuition, entering into a dialogue across the ages. Each artwork stands as a testament to the act of seeing and making, offering us a chance to participate in the ongoing unfolding of art history.