De Zuiderhaven te Harlingen c. 1903

This photograph, by Frits Freerks Fontein Fz., captures the Zuiderhaven at Harlingen. It’s a muted scene, rendered in tones of grey and brown. I wonder what it was like for Fontein to frame this shot, to compose a vision of the logs floating on the water, the boats docked in the harbour and the windmill beyond. Did he feel a sense of connection to the city as he worked? Did he spend time there beforehand? I see a lot of straight horizontal lines, punctuated by the vertical masts of the ships. The logs create an interesting dialogue with their reflections in the water. What is it like to witness this daily life? It reminds me a little bit of some of the Dutch landscape painters that came before, whose tradition he is part of, painters like Hendrik Willem Mesdag. These people were all in dialogue with each other, even if they never knew each other. I wonder who will be in dialogue with Fontein in the future?