Portret van een onbekende jongen 1891 - 1912

This is a photograph by Friedrich Carel Hisgen of an unknown boy, probably made with a large format camera and silver gelatin chemistry. The composition has a careful balance, but I like the way the details emerge through tone; the folds in the boy's clothes and the subtle gradations in the backdrop make it feel painterly. This makes me think about my own work, where I am always trying to reconcile planning with giving space to accident. You can see the photographer has used the bench to create depth and to allow the boy to adopt a natural pose, but there’s a stillness here that makes you wonder. Look closely at his eyes. You might feel like you are the one being examined. It feels less like a candid snapshot and more like a staged encounter, and it reminds me of those ambiguous moments in the uncanny photographs of people like Jeff Wall, where staged and unstaged realities meet. It invites us to consider the complexities of portraiture as a medium, and how a single image can evoke diverse interpretations.