Eugen Wachenheimer poseert met bij een auto met twee soldaten en bij de watervallen van Kostenets, 1926, Bulgarije 1926

This is a black and white photograph from 1926 of Eugen Wachenheimer posing with a car, two soldiers and the Kostenets waterfalls in Bulgaria, taken by a member of the Wachenheimer family. I love the accidental quality of old photographs. Here, two images on the page are placed next to each other, creating a dialogue. In the top one, a man is posing in front of a car, a symbol of modernity and progress, with two soldiers standing guard. In the other, the same man poses alone by the 'waterfall', a symbol of nature, solitude and perhaps the sublime. The image and its composition invites you to think about the relationship between man and nature, technology and tradition, and the individual and the collective. The photographer invites us to think about these binary relationships and how they shape our understanding of the world. Just as a painter might layer paint and brushstrokes, the photographer here layers images and themes, inviting us to see the world in a new light.