Portret van een gezelschap reisgenoten van Dolph Kessler op de trap voor een houten huis c. 1903 - 1908

Geldolph Adriaan Kessler captured this photo, “Portret van een gezelschap reisgenoten van Dolph Kessler op de trap voor een houten huis,” with a camera and film sometime in the early 20th century. I love thinking about what it might have been like to take a photograph back then. The amount of light that was needed and how people needed to be so still. It makes you wonder if it represents a kind of performance in time, a sort of dance of light and movement. The sepia tone reminds me of how memory works, with layers of association and experience that color and reshape our recollections. It’s less about perfect accuracy, and more about the feelings and impressions that linger over time. It also tells us something about the development of photography as an art form and visual language, its ongoing dialogue between capturing reality and shaping perception.