De Zuiderhaven te Harlingen c. 1903

This photograph, "De Zuiderhaven te Harlingen," was captured by Frits Freerks Fontein Fz. sometime around the early 20th century. The whole scene is rendered in a lovely, subtle range of tones, which feels totally in keeping with the atmosphere of the scene. There's something so grounding about the way Fontein composes this image, a scene filled with stacks of timber, the old mill, and the harbor. It's as though he's inviting us to take a slow, meandering walk through the working harbor. The water is so still it becomes almost like a mirror, reflecting the sky and the structures around it, blurring the lines between the physical and the ethereal. The photograph is a reminder that, just like artmaking, life is an ongoing conversation. It reminds me a little of the early work of someone like Bernd and Hilla Becher, if they were photographing in the Netherlands. It has a certain quiet ambiguity, leaving space for our own interpretations and reflections.