From the Shores of the Bosphorus 1912

Adolph de Meyer made this photograph, From the Shores of the Bosphorus, sometime around the turn of the last century. Look how soft everything is, like a memory fading at the edges. The texture in this print is everything; the subtle gradations of tone feel both deliberate and almost accidental, like he found them there. The light feels like it’s been caught, somehow, in the fibers of the paper itself. See the way the shadows around the boy’s face almost vibrate? The whole image hovers between clarity and blur, stillness and movement. It reminds me a bit of some of the early modernist painters, like Vuillard, who were trying to capture the fleeting, subjective quality of experience. This photograph isn’t just a record; it's a feeling. That's what great art can do: not just show us the world, but let us feel it, too.