Tonnen op een kade in de Haarlemmer Houttuinen, Amsterdam 1900 - 1920

This is a photograph of barrels on a quay in Haarlemmer Houttuinen, Amsterdam, by Machiel Hendricus Laddé. You know, the way the light catches on the barrels, it's like Laddé is exploring a limited tonal range, like a painter might work with a monochrome palette to understand form. The photograph is very gray, but I can make out all sorts of different textures. You can almost feel the roughness of the wood and the slickness of the water. The whole image feels very immediate, like you’re right there on the quay with the barrels. I can see the grain of the wood in the barrels, how they're stacked so carefully and repeated in uniform rows. There's a kind of quiet intensity in the repetition, a suggestion of the industrial processes at work. Laddé reminds me of Atget, who documented Paris at the turn of the last century, finding poetry in the everyday. It’s like Laddé is trying to capture something essential about Amsterdam, the beauty in the ordinary, not just the grand canals and architecture. He invites us to see the poetry in the repetition and rhythm of daily life.