Photographs from the Estate of Isabel Wachenheimer 1932

This sepia photograph comes from the Estate of Isabel Wachenheimer, and its maker is unknown to us. I wonder what the photographer was thinking, or trying to capture. The moment is intimate but the figures are arranged as though posing, and the image is marked by some imperfections, surface scratches like painterly marks. I feel like I can touch them. The image shows an older man in a suit with two seated figures, one a young girl with a mischievous gleam in her eye. He looks down at them with a soft gaze, gentle and knowing. The tonal range is limited, like an old master drawing, built up with chalk. Look at the way the light catches the man’s hair, and the way the focus is on his face, as if to say, “Here is a man.” Whether chance, intuition, or intention, these elements shape the photograph, inviting us into a tender moment.