Meeuwen boven het meer van Genéve, tijdens een vakantie van Eugen Wachenheimer en zijn echtgenote Else Wachenheimer-Moos door Zwitserland, augustus 1927, meer van Genéve 1927 - 1928

Editor: This is a photograph titled "Seagulls Over Lake Geneva," taken during a holiday in Switzerland by Eugen Wachenheimer and his wife around 1927. It's a gelatin silver print. The mood feels a little melancholic to me, maybe because of the muted tones. What do you make of it? Curator: Melancholy is a good word. I see it as a dance between freedom and constraint. The seagulls, wild and unbound against the vast, gray sky... but captured, frozen, within the neat little frame of Wachenheimer’s photograph. It speaks to the longing for escape, that feeling you get on vacation, juxtaposed with the knowledge that even paradise is just a snapshot in time. Doesn't it remind you of trying to hold onto a feeling, a memory, only to have it slip through your fingers like lake water? What catches your eye most about the composition? Editor: Definitely the stark contrast between the dark water and sky, and the bright, almost chaotic froth of the waves. Curator: Yes, that division. It’s a barrier, isn’t it? The birds seem to occupy a liminal space, belonging neither wholly to the sky nor the water. Perhaps they represent Wachenheimer himself, an observer, suspended between experience and reflection. Don't you wonder what he and his wife were discussing as he snapped the photo? Editor: That’s a cool thought! I was just seeing it as a nice vacation photo, but it's much deeper than that. Thanks! Curator: Art often surprises you like that; a glimpse of everyday life transformed into something…more. Thank *you* for your fresh perspective.