Ondergelopen straat met besneeuwde huizen in een buitenwijk van Parijs 1910 - 1911

Dangereux captured an inundated street with snow-covered houses in suburban Paris with what looks like a camera from another century. It’s all in shades of grey, with a ghostly light. I wonder what it was like to make photographs back then? So much waiting and hoping. The photographer must have been thinking, "How can I make this grey world sing?" The houses sit there in the near distance, surrounded by water and topped with snow, their forms doubled in the still water. The bare tree is such a stark, graphic statement, and the lamppost to the side almost comical. You can see the influence of photography on painters like Gerhard Richter. It's all about atmosphere, less about detail. It reminds you that art-making is about making choices and framing reality, not just recording it. Painters and photographers are always chatting to each other across time, inspiring one another to see the world in new ways. Like this photographer, we try to impose a kind of order on all the chaos. It’s a human thing.