Portret van een onbekende man before 1902

This portrait of an unknown man by L. Chastellain stares back at you from the pages of a book. The original act of photographing a person—how did it come into being? What was it like to pose? I sympathize with the photographer and the sitter. What might they have been thinking? Maybe they were trying to capture a likeness, a feeling, a moment in time. The texture of the paper, the quality of light, the angle of the shot—all contribute to the experience of the photograph, and the emotional resonances of the work. The sitter's beard communicates so much feeling! It reminds me of the beards in the work of Gustave Courbet. It's like artists are in an ongoing conversation and exchange of ideas across time, inspiring one another’s creativity. Photography is a form of expression which embraces ambiguity and uncertainty, allowing for multiple interpretations.