Portret van twee vrouwen c. 1900 - 1910

This photograph of two women was taken by G. Hidderley sometime in the past. I can imagine Hidderley looking into the ground glass of the camera, making tiny adjustments with a crank, and then covering his head with a dark cloth to block out the light. I'm sympathetic to the photographer, here. I think of the patience involved in wet-plate photography and the need for precision. In this image, the textures are soft, and it has tones of gray, which are interesting. The two women are sitting close to one another, and the woman on the left looks down at the woman on the right. Perhaps there is an intimacy here. I am reminded of the photographs of Gertrude Käsebier who used soft focus to create allegorical themes of motherhood and childhood. I think artists like G. Hidderley and Gertrude Käsebier are in a conversation about how to capture a moment in time through the lens. Painting, like photography, is a form of embodied expression, with multiple meanings over time.