Huis aan een water met een brug, aan de horizon twee torens c. 1905 - 1907

Folkert Idzes de Jong made this photograph of a house by a canal with a bridge, sometime between 1877 and 1929, we don't have any further information on the date or the process he used to create it. What interests me in this work is its tone. The photo is a muted brown color, but in the sky, in the water and on the bridge, the greys seem to have been painted in separately, in smooth, controlled strokes. It feels like the artist may have worked in painting, and this shows up in their approach to photography. Look at the way the trees are reflected in the water. It’s like a mirror image, but slightly distorted, like a memory. It’s this kind of layering, this sense of something seen, something remembered, something imagined, that makes the photo so compelling. I'm reminded of the soft painterly photographs of Baldus. This photograph isn’t just about seeing; it’s about feeling, remembering, and dreaming.