Schepen op de Golf van Egina before 1910

These are black and white photographs of ships in the gulf of Aegina by Frédéric Boissonnas. The artist must have been patient, waiting in the landscape for the boats to align. The image is not just documenting the place; it also captures the feeling of being there. I wonder, when Boissonnas took these photos, what was the exchange between the artist and the subject? Did the presence of the photographer alter the scene itself, or did they blend into the background, unnoticed? Did those boats even know they were going to be immortalized? I look at the detail in the water, the clarity of the air. Boissonnas’s photographs are in conversation with a long history of landscape painting. Artists are always in conversation, aren't they?