Militairen wisselen van wacht 1941 - 1945

This small, undated photograph, "Militairen wisselen van wacht," captures a scene with anonymous figures, now housed at the Rijksmuseum. It’s the kind of image that makes you think about the process of seeing, how the camera transforms a moment into something else. The photograph is monochromatic, which brings a certain gravity, but it’s the texture that gets me. Look closely at the facade of the building, the way the light hits it – it’s not smooth, there’s a graininess there. It reminds me of the way we layer and rework paintings, building up surfaces that tell a story of their making. It’s a simple image, yet it holds so much. It reminds me of Atget, those early 20th-century photographs of Paris – everyday scenes, unremarkable, but full of a quiet, melancholic beauty. Art isn’t always about grand gestures; sometimes it’s about finding the extraordinary in the ordinary.