Portret van Adolphe Pégoud in zijn vliegtuig c. 1910 - 1913

This is a photograph of Adolphe Pégoud in his airplane, made by A. Wyland. It's rendered in monochrome, a limited palette, which reduces the world to light and shadow. Look at the geometry of the plane, the network of lines crisscrossing through the air. It's fascinating to think about photography as a kind of drawing. Here the texture is created by the grain of the photographic paper, giving it a soft, almost hazy quality. The tones vary from deep blacks to subtle greys, creating depth and atmosphere. The lines of the plane’s structure remind me of a sketch. See how the artist uses these intersecting lines to create a sense of form and space? This image feels like a precursor to the experimental photography of someone like László Moholy-Nagy, who also explored the relationship between technology, space, and the human body. What do you see?