Amandelbloesem c. 1900 - 1940

Richard Tepe made this photograph called Amandelbloesem at an unspecified date, it is on view here at the Rijksmuseum. The photograph has this beautiful, sepia quality that you get with these older photos. The image is so dense and full, like the whole frame has just exploded with these blossoms. There's a sort of all-overness to it, an overall balance. The sepia tones make it feel delicate, and the texture is very soft, which makes it look painterly, like a wash almost. You can see the branches, these almost black lines, coming through. It reminds me a little of some of Gerhard Richter’s blurred photos, where he’s obscuring something, but there's still an image there. I think of Tepe as being part of a long conversation with other image makers, people like Richter, or even earlier photographers like Julia Margaret Cameron. It’s all about seeing what the medium can do and how we can play with it. There is no end point, no definitive answer, just different ways of seeing.