The Bridge at Ipswich 1904

Alvin Langdon Coburn made this dreamy photograph of a bridge at Ipswich. I imagine Coburn standing there, squinting into the light, trying to capture something of the water’s reflections. There’s something about the way the bridge looms, dark and solid, next to the soft, almost blurry tree, that makes you think about time. The bridge, built to last, and the tree, growing and changing with the seasons. It almost feels like he’s playing with light and shadow, trying to find the hidden beauty in the everyday. It reminds me of some of Whistler’s nocturnes, those hazy, dreamlike scenes of London at night. You can see how artists were starting to play with abstraction, blurring the lines between what’s real and what’s imagined. We're all just trying to see the world in a new light, and pass it on.